John Kappes PhD

 Dr. Kappes has extensive experience in basic and translational HIV/retrovirology, HIV-1 transmission biology, and a track record for developing and applying innovative technologies broadly applicable to HIV/AIDS transmission and vaccine discovery research. Discovery-enabling technologies from his laboratory have included the ubiquitous TZMbl assay for measuring HIV/SIV entry and inhibition thereof; generation and characterization of the first infectious molecular clones (IMC) representing HIV-1 transmitted/founder (T/F) viruses; innovative trans-lentiviral vector molecular designs informed by his labs early studies of retroviral assembly (Wu et al. EMBO J, 1997; Wu et al. Molecular Therapy, 2000); cell modification and gene expression platforms enabling the efficient production of functional integral membrane proteins (i.e. HIV-1 membrane anchored Env; and CFTR); and highly-sensitive replication-competent HIV-1 reporter viruses, including those comprising T/F envs and molecular designs features that preserve HIV-1 gene functionality for physiologically relevant analyses in primary cells and tissue models. Augmented by expertise in vectorology, virology and T/F viruses, Dr. Kappes’s research program has also focused on basic questions of mucosal HIV-1 transmission, including correlates of immune protection and early virus-host interactions involved in mucosal HIV-1 transmission. He has performed work with T/F viruses and published numerous studies on mucosal of HIV-1 transmission. His lab has established expertise using the advance collagen raft-supported cervical explant tissue (CET) model and multicolor flow cytometric analysis to analyze properties of T/F viruses that favor sexual transmission. Dr. Kappes’s lab has also identified a previously unrecognized pathway by which monocyte-derived macrophages may become infected by HIV-1 R5 but not X4 strains of virus.

Education

• BA, Thomas More College, Fort Mitchell, KY
• PhD, St. Thomas Institute, Cincinnati, OH, OH
• Postdoc, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL

Research Interests

• HIV-1 transmission biology: Transmitted/founder viruses
• HIV-1 pathogenesis and prevention
• Development of lentiviral viral vectors for safe and efficient mammalian cell modification
• Models of HIV-1 transmission

Recent Publications

• Ochsenbauer C, Edmonds TG, Ding H, Keele BF, Decker J, Salazar MG, Salazar-Gonzalez JF, Shattock R, Haynes BF, Shaw GM, Hahn BH, Kappes JC. Generation of transmitted/founder HIV-1 infectious molecular clones and characterization of their replication capacity in CD4 T lymphocytes and monocyte-derived macrophages. J Virol. 2012 Mar;86(5):2715-28. PubMed PMID: 22190722; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3302286.
• Merbah M, Arakelyan A, Edmonds T, Ochsenbauer C, Kappes JC, Shattock RJ, Grivel JC, Margolis LB. HIV-1 expressing the envelopes of transmitted/founder or control/reference viruses have similar infection patterns of CD4 T-cells in human cervical tissue ex vivo. PLoS One. 2012;7(12):e50839. PubMed PMID: 23236398; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3516523.
• Yoder AC, Guo K, Dillon SM, Phang T, Lee EJ, Harper MS, Helm K, Kappes JC, Ochsenbauer C, McCarter MD, Wilson CC, Santiago ML. The transcriptome of HIV-1 infected intestinal CD4+ T cells exposed to enteric bacteria. PLoS Pathog. 2017 Feb 27;13(2):e1006226. PMID: 28241075
• Baalwa J, Wang S, Parrish NF, Decker JM, Keele BF, Learn GH, Yue L, Ruzagira E, Ssemwanga D, Kamali A, Amornkul PN, Price MA, Kappes JC, Karita E, Kaleebu P, Sanders E, Gilmour J, Allen S, Hunter E, Montefiori DC, Haynes BF, Cormier E, Hahn BH, Shaw GM. Molecular identification, cloning and characterization of transmitted/founder HIV-1 subtype A, D and A/D infectious molecular clones. Virology. 2013 Feb 5;436(1):33-48. PubMed PMID: 23123038; PMCID: PMC3545109.
• Complete list of published work: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/john c.kappes.1/bibliography/47591549/public/