I have an established record of excellence in teaching and monitoring. I personally supervised the work of all the research fellows, university students, and technicians who have gained experience in the laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh during the past 13 years. I have proved an excellent mentor, training the postdoctoral fellows and technicians in basic and advanced techniques of immunology, enabling many young members of the laboratory to coauthor manuscripts published by the group (Transplantation. 2008;86:1452-1462, Transfusion. 2009;49:2418-2429. Immunology. 2011;134:386-397, Cornea. 2016;35:105-13). I have given seminars in several centers in the USA, Japan, and China. In addition, I have participated as an invited guest speaker at the International Xenotransplantation Association. Many of my trainees (in Dr. Cooper’s laboratory) have presented at national and international meetings, including being invited as guest speakers. Several of his group’s fellows have received the Young Investigator Award at scientific conferences.
Teaching experience: All were postdoctoral research fellows or medical or undergraduate students unless otherwise indicated.
In addition to training more than a dozen postdoctoral fellows in Pittsburgh, I have been invited to two centers in China to help establish similar laboratories. Furthermore, our group continues to collaborate with several departments and companies, both domestic (internal) and international. These collaborative groups include the following groups:
(i) Edmonton, Canada (Dr. James Shapiro at University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada) focusing on islet transplantation in the GSMS site in humans as a clinical trial, (ii) Winnipeg, MB, Canada (Dr. Rizwan Manji, University of Manitoba) focusing on pig derived bioprosthetic heart valves, (iii) Palermo, Italy (Dr. Bruno Gridelli, ISMETT) in investigating pig-to-baboon hepatocyte xenotransplantation using a clinically-applicable immunosuppressive regimen, (iv) Moscow, Russia (Dr. Nicoli Bovin) focusing on the role of N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu-Gc) as a relevant pig antigen in xenotransplantation, (v) Beijing, China (Tongren Hospital, Drs. Zhiqiang Pan and Xiaojuan Dong) focusing on corneal xenotransplantation in NHPs, (vi) Shenzhen, China (Shenzhen Second Hospital, Drs. Chai, Lisha, Wang, Zhou) focusing on kidney and neonatal islet xenotransplantations in NHPs, (vii) Tulane University and Revivicor, Inc. (Dr. David Ayares) focusing on pig lung scaffold implantation in monkeys, (viii) UPMC (Dr. Martin Wijkstrom) focusing on the comparison of serum anti-pig antibody levels, memory T cells and T cell proliferative response to pig stimulator cells between patients with high and low panel-reactive antibodies, (ix) University of Pittsburgh/McGowan Institute (Dr. Yadong Wang) using bioengineered material sheets for wound repair in a diabetic pig model. My involvement was helping carry out in vivo studies (as an advisor). In addition, Dr. Wang and I (as a Co-PI) have received a NIH grant (RO1) to help cover the expense of these studies.
In all the above mentioned collaborations I have strongly involved in each as either an active participant or as a teaching/advisor.
