Amanda Ruiz
Amanda Elyssa Ruiz is a postdoctoral fellow in biological engineering whose research interests are in immunology, vaccine development, and global health. Specifically, Amanda’s work concentrates on the development of novel vaccine candidates against flaviviruses, a family of RNA viruses – including Dengue, Zika, and West Nile viruses – that lead to significant morbidity and mortality on a global scale. By leveraging protein engineering strategies alongside platforms to elucidate evolutionary antibody dynamics in humans and natural animal reservoirs, Amanda hopes to shed light on how these viruses have evaded the mammalian immune system for centuries. In her doctoral research, Amanda studied protective immune responses to the neglected tropical disease schistosomiasis. A postdoctoral fellowship will support her on-going work to develop platforms and techniques to manipulate immune recognition, enhance immune responses using nanotechnologies, and perturb the host-pathogen interface. The broader goals of Amanda’s research are to contribute to the understanding of adaptive immune responses implicated in neglected tropical diseases and to develop preventative and therapeutic solutions for infectious diseases. Her work holds great promise to advance affordable vaccine design, thus improving global health.