Virology & Mycology
Open Access
ISSN: 2161-0517
ISSN: 2161-0517
Barry Rockx
Assistant Professor, Departments of Pathology and Microbiology
University of Texas, The University of Texas Medical Branch, USA
1999-2004 Ph.D. student, Diagnostic Laboratory for Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
2004 Emanuel Wolinsky Award for best article published in Clinical Infectious Diseases in 2002.
2004 Post-doctoral Research associate, Diagnostic Laboratory for Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
2004-2008 Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC.
2008-2010 Research Fellow, Laboratory of Virology, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, DIR, NIAID, NIH.
2010 Rising STAR award.
2010-present Assistant Professor, Departments of Pathology and Microbiolgy & Immunology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX.
Dr. Rockx’s research interests are focused on virus-host interactions, molecular pathogenic mechanisms, and the host responses following emerging high containment virus infection. His research will focus on the development and characterization of in vivo and in vitro models of Hendra (HeV) and Nipah virus (NiV) infection. HeV and NiV are two members of the genus Henipavirus (family Paramyxoviridea) that cause respiratory illness and encephalitis in humans and a variety of other mammals. The goal of these projects is to understand how these viruses infect the respiratory tract and spread to the central nervous system and to identify differences in routes of transmission and pathogenesis between different HeV and NiV strains.
A second area of interest is the development and testing of broadly protective therapeutics. The high mutation rate and heterogeneity of emerging zoonotic viruses is a major problem in developing therapeutics and therefore a key objective is the development of broadly cross-reactive reagents that will maximize the likelihood of protection against unknown future strain variants.