Christina Guzzo

I started my research training with a BScH at Queen’s University in Life Sciences and continued my studies at Queen’s under the mentorship of Dr. Katrina Gee to receive my PhD in Microbiology and Immunology in 2012. My PhD work elucidated novel functions for interleukin-27 in monocyte biology and HIV-infected people, funded by an OHTN studentship and CIHR Vanier CGS,  and recognized with the Governor General’s Gold Medal Thesis award. From 2012-2017 I trained as a post-doctoral fellow at NIAID, NIH in Bethesda, MD under the mentorship of Drs. Paolo Lusso and Anthony Fauci, where my research identified a novel antiviral chemokine (XCL1) against HIV, and the exciting discovery that human integrins can be incorporated into HIV-1 viruses to alter their homing in vivo. My post-doctoral studies were supported with a CIHR Fellowship and recognized with the NIH Normal P. Salzman Memorial Award in Virology.  I moved to the University of Toronto (Scarborough campus) to establish my own viral immunology research program in 2017. Building on my PhD and post-doc training, my lab continues to study chemokine biology in innate immunity, including the ability for chemokines to be sequestered in intracellular storage vesicles in monocytic cells. A central focus of my lab is to study the surface proteins of virus particles, in order to better understand the mechanisms of viral infection and how virion-incorporated human proteins can impart new biological properties to viruses. Most recently, the Guzzo lab has been pioneering new methods in 'flow virometry', a unique experimental technique that can generate a protein fingerprint on the surface of viruses, yielding exciting discoveries of novel human proteins on the surface of viruses and new understandings in virus biology and HIV disease.