Biography
Prof. Lbachir BenMohamed
Prof. Lbachir BenMohamed
University of California, Irvine, USA
Biography: 
Lbachir BenMohamed, PhD, Professor of Immunology, earned his MS in Immunology-parasitology and his PhD in immunology at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, France. He completed a first postdoctoral fellowship at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, France, and lather two postdoctoral positions in the United States, at the City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA, and then at The Beckman Research Institute of Immunology, Duarte, CA. At the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine), he holds joint appointments in the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, the Institute for Immunology, the Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has participated in a number of United States Department of Defense peer review panels and National Institutes of Health (NIH) special emphasis panels. In 2002, he founded the Cellular & Molecular Immunology Laboratory at UC Irvine which serves Gavin Herbert Eye Institute clinicians and researchers and other UCI Departments as a support and resource facility for basic and translational research in cellular and molecular immunology. Dr. BenMohamed serves the Director of Cellular & Molecular Immunology Laboratory since 2002. He is the recipient of several United States National Institute of Health (NIH) grants. He is an independent immunologist, with a strong expertise in vaccine development against both infectious diseases and cancer. Dr. BenMohamed is well integrated into the scientific community within the United States as well as Europe and is actively involved in a number of professional societies including American Association of Immunologists (AAI), American Society for Microbiology (ASM), American Society for Hematology (ASH), Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). His research currently focuses on 6 main projects: (1) the humoral and cellular immune responses to ocular, genital and oro-facial Herpes Simplex Viral infections (HSV-1 & HSV-2); (2) T cell epitope mapping on HSV-1 & HSV-2 proteins. He identified several epitopes that are recognized by CD4 and CD8 cells from symptomatic compared with asymptomatic patients, and is using these as the basis for subunit vaccine development; (3) the development and optimization of sub-unit vaccines against HSV-1 & HSV-2 infections and diseases; (4) identification of the underlying cellular and molecular immune mechanisms that control HSV-1 & HSV-2 latency and reactivation from the latently infected neurons to active infection in the skin (cold sores), the vaginal tract, and in the cornea (Herpes Simplex Keratitis, HSK), which causes blinding eye disease; (5) the molecular biology and pathogenesis of HIV; and (6) the production of vaccines for cancers using subunit vaccines , adenovirus-based vectors; adeno-associated virus-based vectors; and lentivirus-based vectors.