Mirko Paiardini, PhD
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Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine
Division Chief, Microbiology & Immunology, Emory National Primate Research Center
Co-director, Next Generation Therapeutics SWG, Emory Center for AIDS Research
Mirko Paiardini completed his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Urbino, Italy. Before joining Emory, Dr. Paiardini was a research associate in the laboratory of Dr. Guido Silvestri at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
My research program focuses on using nonhuman primates (NHPs) to model viral immunology. With an emphasis on HIV-1, we seek to unravel the mechanisms that govern the maintenance of latently infected cells in vivo and adapting this knowledge to devise innovative immunotherapeutic strategies towards a cure for HIV. Although antiretroviral therapy (ART) is highly effective in suppressing viremia to clinically undetectable levels, thereby preventing AIDS progression and transmission, it is incapable of purging the HIV reservoir: a pool of heterogenous, long-lived, latently infected CD4+ T cells from which virus rapidly recrudesces upon ART cessation. Based at the Emory National Primate Research Center (EPC), our laboratory utilizes simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infected NHPs as a comparative model for people living with HIV (PLWH) to investigate immunopathology, viral persistence, cell-mediated immunity, and as a preclinical platform to test high risk interventions. In this role, my laboratory is a core component of the Enterprise for Research and Advocacy to Stop and Eradicate (ERASE) HIV Collaboratory in partnership with Merck, which seeks to evaluate the juxtaposing roles of CD8+ T cells in eliminating productively infected cells and promoting the maintenance of viral latency. Drawing on these experiences, our research portfolio has expanded to include other emerging, high-priority pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2.
Recruited to Emory University in 2010, Dr. Mirko Paiardini is the Division Chief of Microbiology & Immunology at EPC, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Emory University’s School of Medicine, and co-Director of Emory University’s Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). Furthermore, he serves on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Virology and as Associate Editor for Pathogens and Immunity; a study session reviewer for the NIH, National Science Foundation, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; and a member of the External Scientific Advisory Boards for the Duke University Medical Center and AbbVie.