Cross-appointments
- Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Max Rady College of Medicine
- Immunology, Max Rady College of Medicine
Research interest
HIV Vaccine Development in the SIV Macaque Model using multi-low dose mucosal challenge, specifically to examine Herpesviruses such as Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) and Cytomegalovirus (CMV) as lifelong reactivating vectors for HIV vaccine delivery.
Keywords
- Cellular Immunity
- Epidemiology
- HIV/AIDS
- Immunotherapy
- Innate immunity
- Molecular biology
- SIV Macaque Model
- Vaccine design
- Varicella Zoster virus
- Behavioral correlates
- Microbiome
- Female genital tract
Research affiliations
- Adjunct scientist, JC Wilt Infectious Diseases Research Centre
- Public Health Agency of Canada
Research groups
- SARS CoV-2 Cell Mediated Immunity Research Group (JC Wilt)
- Northern HIV Journey Mapping Initiative Project Team
Research summary
Dr. MacDonald's research experience spans the basic science realm where she works in small animal, nonhuman primate models and with human samples on immunopathogenesis and prevention research on HIV to the field of clinical epidemiology and clinical research trials where she examines clinical and behavioural correlates of risk factors associated with differential risk of STD and HIV acquisition and disease.
Her research focuses on pathogen-driven variation in host immune responses to HIV and its application in vaccine design. She supervises a research lab at the JC Wilt Infectious Diseases Centre as joint collaboration between the HIV program of the Canadian Public Health Agency and the University of Manitoba. She also conducts HIV vaccine and STD research in Nairobi, Kenya where she has worked for more than twenty-five years. She has two novel vaccine prototypes involving vaccine vectors from the herpes virus family (VZV and CMV), which aim at providing lifelong self-boosting immunity currently under study in non-human primates and humans as part of a CIHR Team in HIV vaccine design. She also studies mucosal factors affecting immunity and vaccine delivery such as the genital microbiome.