Nearly half of the world’s citizens live in areas with a risk of catching dengue fever,��according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As the mosquito-borne illness rapidly spreads, especially in the Americas and Caribbean, a  researcher is playing a crucial role in finding solutions.

James Earnest, an assistant professor at the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, is leading two new research projects to examine how humans build an immune response to dengue and the Zika virus over time, in pursuit of creating better preventative measures.

Tackling a Global Problem

Both dengue and Zika are carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito,��which has expanded its habitat from Africa to tropical,��subtropical and even temperate areas worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, dengue infections in humans climbed from 505,430 in 2000 to 14.6 million in 2024, an increase of more than 2,700%.

Dengue can be asymptomatic or cause severe pain, fatigue and high fever. Repeated infections can be fatal.

Since 2017, there have been few cases of Zika recorded in the U.S., but the disease persists sporadically in Africa, the Americas and Asia. The virus’ biggest health concern is for pregnant women because contracting Zika can increase risks for serious congenital birth defects.

While people in Mexico and Uganda may benefit from this research,��Florida’s location as a worldwide travel destination adds to the growing need for solutions. U.S. dengue cases are on the rise and have been reported in Florida, California,��Texas and Hawaii. Most are related to travel. Dengue is also prevalent in Puerto Rico.

“The threat to the U.S. is growing over time. … We want to be the leaders at looking at these viruses.” — James Earnest, UCF Assistant Professor

“With more favorable temperatures and with people traveling around the globe these days, the threat to the U.S. is growing over time,” Earnest says. “I think, especially here in Florida, the potential for these mosquitoes to live in these areas and start transmitting these diseases in the very near future is high. UCF recognizes that this is an important avenue of research for this region, and so we want to be the leaders at looking at these viruses.”

How the UCF Research Works

Earnest’s lab is focused on how the immune system responds to mosquito-borne viruses. Before arriving at Ů��AV in 2024, he tracked dengue via longitudinal sampling in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Earnest is collaborating with the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) through a five-year $970,813 subcontract, part of a larger grant awarded to UVRI from Wellcome, a London-based charitable organization that supports science to solve urgent health challenges. The project aims to study immune system and antibody responses to dengue and Zika in large cohorts of people in Uganda and in Mexico.

UCF will also collaborate with Emory University on a $578,157 grant from the National Institutes of Health, with Earnest subcontracted to Emory to study whether combining two current dengue inoculations used in Brazil gives humans better protection against repeat infections.

“It’s important that we understand what good and bad immune responses look like to these viruses.” — James Earnest, UCF Assistant Professor

“It’s important that we understand what good and bad immune responses look like to these viruses,” Earnest says. “When we know those factors, then we can try to steer people in the right direction so that their antibodies will protect them from disease.”

Earnest will coordinate with teams in other countries to regularly collect blood samples and measure antibody production to get a comprehensive look at how different people’s bodies react to dengue and Zika over time. The samples will be collected and processed in Mexico and Uganda, and Earnest will analyze the results in his lab.

“I think what’s unique about this work is that we’re following people over time and not necessarily just when they get sick,” Earnest says.

His research focuses on B cells, which are white blood cells that make antibodies and help the body remember how to fight infections. By tracking how people’s B cells change over time, his team aims to understand how immune responses differ across regions.

In a related project with Emory, the lab will identify the most effective memory B cells and antibodies induced by two existing methods of inoculation for dengue, then test whether combining those methods in Brazilian trial participants produces a stronger immune response.

Students Aim to Save Lives Through Lab Work

With this new research,��Earnest’s lab has welcomed two new UCF students who have personal experience with dengue and Zika.

Maiesha Mahmood, a second-year biotechnology master’s student,��is from Bangladesh, where the threat of dengue looms.

“I have been around dengue a lot growing up,” Mahmood says. “I know people who have been in hospital with severe forms of dengue, and people who’ve passed away suddenly. People become scared of mosquitos and dengue.”

She says she hopes UCF’s research will someday save lives.

“Back in Bangladesh,��we don’t really have a lot of facilities that can support virology research,” she says. “It was a huge opportunity to be able to come here and be able to work with Dr. Earnest. I want to continue looking into these kinds of viruses and find a way to help people who keep suffering from these diseases.”

�����ܲԴ����ʾ��Գ�𾱰�����’25, a first-year Ph.D. candidate,��joined Earnest’s lab to further his education and hopes research will help people close to him.

“My family is from Brazil and so Zika was a very big thing for them,” says Pinheiro, who earned his bachelor’s degree in biotechnology “It’s great to work on something that you can feel will impact the community that you’re a part of.”

Researcher Credentials:

Earnest joined UCF’s College of Medicine as an assistant professor in 2024. He earned his doctorate in microbiology and immunology from Loyola University Chicago in 2017. He performed postdoctoral research at Washington University in St. Louis studying antibody responses to mosquito-borne viruses and Emory University where he managed clinical field trials in Latin America.

Funding and Disclosure:

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number U01AI186860. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Each semester, Gideon Lewis ’04‘s unique internship provides three or four pre-medical students exposure to the operating room alongside community surgeons. Interns don’t just stand in the corner and observe. They participate in patient care and research and get a firsthand understanding of surgical procedures and medical pathologies.

Over the past 15 years, Lewis’ internship has trained 85 interns and 98% of them have gone on to medical school, at universities including UCF, Case Western, Harvard, Miami and University of Pennsylvania.

“This program was born from a desire to provide students with something I never had — hands-on, immersive exposure to surgical medicine while still in college,” says Lewis, who is an affiliated faculty member with the UCF College of Medicine and director of the Foot & Ankle Sports Medicine Institute. “It’s incredibly fulfilling to see former interns now thriving as medical students, residents and even practicing physicians.”

Deborah German, UCF’s vice president for health affairs and founding dean of the College of Medicine, praised Dr. Lewis’ commitment to education. “When I came here to build this medical school, I did not know that I would find such generous and talented physicians as we have in our community,” she says. “Dr. Lewis is an example of someone who exemplifies the portion of the Hippocratic Oath that says each of us must be committed to training the next generation of doctors.”

How the Program Works

The UCF Surgical Internship Program is designed to bridge the gap between academic learning and real-world clinical exposure for undergraduate students interested in careers in medicine.

The internship selection process is selective and rigorous. Candidates must have at least a 3.5 grade point average, have taken both Human Anatomy and Human Physiology at the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, have a letter of recommendation and participate in an interview with internship leaders. Interns spend at least eight hours a week with Dr. Lewis’ team, including time in operating rooms at AdventHealth Winter Park,��Downtown Surgery Center, and Foot and Ankle Sports Medicine Institute.

They also gain insights into patient interactions, clinical decision-making, and the humanistic side of healthcare. Participants are mentored by Lewis and a team of experienced providers across multiple specialties. Mentors include community physicians in neuro, vascular, orthopedic, plastic, trauma and general surgery.

“This participation with so many different physicians makes this one of the most unique and sought-after undergraduate medical experiences in the country.” — Gideon Lewis ’04, alum and physician

“This participation with so many different physicians makes this one of the most unique and sought-after undergraduate medical experiences in the country,” Dr. Lewis says.

Mark Chaet has been one of those participating physicians. A pediatric surgeon at Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and Advent Health Children’s Hospital, he is now dean of the Florida State University College of Medicine’s Orlando Regional Campus. He says the mentorship program is successful because it involves “incredibly motivated and enthusiastic students who are new to the world of medicine.” And as a practicing surgeon, he says the UCF students “really invigorated my love for teaching.”

UCF students shadowed Chaet during a variety of pediatric surgical procedures, including hernia repairs, chest reconstruction and removal of benign growths. Many of the treatments were done at the surgery center, allowing students to learn and interact with their physician mentor in a smaller, less intimidating session, he said.  They also had the opportunity to see the dynamics of how a pediatric surgical team works with frightened young patients and their families. Chaet says such real world experiences are critical for pre-med students to really understand what it means to be a doctor and to decide if the challenging career is right for them.

“Dr. Lewis’s program is unique and one of the best internship experiences I have seen because he allows our UCF students to be immersed in a clinical environment,” says Kersten Schroeder, coordinator the UCF’s Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences Clinical Internship Program. “Dr. Lewis allows UCF students to work with him and see the collaborative effort it takes with other specialties to help patients on their way to the healing process.”

Interns are required to write and present a surgical case study and Chaet says the presentations he saw from UCF undergraduates were comparable to those done by medical students and resident physicians.

Current and past interns often have the opportunity to learn suturing techniques during workshops with Lewis and participate in sessions with representatives from medical device companies, athletics organizations and business leaders. Those who complete the internship have the chance to come back as program administrators. The mission, Lewis says, is to train young people to pay forward their blessings and opportunities.

Students Say Surgical Experience Is Life-Changing

Taylor Duffy ’20 and Emily Larson ’25 are two of those students.

Duffy is now a second-year M.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He’d never been in an operating room before the internship and said the hand-on surgical workshops and mentoring clarified his dreams and gave him the confidence to pursue them. He hopes to become an anesthesiologist and said he carries with him in medical school the clinical insights, professionalism and leadership skills he learned in the program. He also carries important life lessons.

“Dr. Lewis taught me to take advantage of every opportunity I was given and then use it to lift up others.” — Taylor Duffy ’20, student

“Dr. Lewis taught me to take advantage of every opportunity I was given,” Duffy says, “and then use it to lift up others.”

Larson is now an assistant director for the internship, where she has grown her leadership skills as she helps provide important learning experiences for new cohorts of Ů��AV pre-med students. She still remembers meeting with a patient who had multiple questions and worries before surgery. Larson worked closely with the patient, writing down all the information she wanted to know. When the doctor arrived moments before surgery began, the patient said she didn’t have any questions or concerns because of Larson’s dedicated care.

“The UCF Surgical Internship Program has been invaluable to my pursuit of a career in medicine,” she says. “Dr. Lewis’ mentorship has inspired me to become a better patient advocate, leader, and future physician.”

Annette Khaled, who leads the College of Medicine’s cancer research division, recently received more than $2 million in grant funding to expand her work with Z-TOP, a peptide she discovered in 2012 that stops the spread of metastatic cancer cells. She is collaborating with colleagues to design a better cellular delivery system for the treatment.

An almost $258,000 grant through the Casey DeSantis Cancer Research Program’s Florida Cancer Innovation Fund will help Khaled’s team further their efforts to stop metastatic breast cancer by disrupting the cellular activities that allow cancer cells to spread. And nearly $1.8 million in funding through the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), in partnership with the Orlando Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, will allow her to develop the treatment for men with late-stage metastatic prostate cancer.

Khaled says her research has expanded thanks to the support of the Orlando Sports Foundation, which funds cancer research through sports-related fundraising events. The nonprofit’s flagship event is the StaffDNA Cure Bowl, a unique college football game with the goal of ending cancer.

“When you get funding for a research project, you can only do the work that is described in the specific aims of the project,” she says. “The donations from the Orlando Sports Foundation do not have this limitation. Without their support, I would not have been awarded the DOD grant. Using the donations, I was able to generate the preliminary data that made me competitive for the DOD and the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) grants we received this year.”

Alan Gooch ’84 ’89MA, CEO of the Orlando Sports Foundation and executive director of the StaffDNA Cure Bowl, says he’s grateful to continue partnering with UCF.

“We’re all about bringing teams together,” says Gooch, who played football at UCF and later coached the team for 22 years. “Our relationship with Dr. Khaled is outstanding, and we are honored to continue to partner with her and sponsor her research.”

The Science Behind Khaled’s Work

The two new grants expand Khaled’s portfolio of research to understand how and why cancer cells spread.

“Cancer treatments are very effective when the cancer is localized, but the problem is that cancer doesn’t stay at one site,” she says. “It spreads to other sites of the body. Usually, the cause of death is not the primary cancer, but metastasis. Preventing that can be a cancer cure, and that is what we’re looking at here in our lab.”

Khaled’s latest research focuses on the spread of cell fragments called extracellular vesicles that are shed by cancer cells during the early stages of the disease. These vesicles are resilient to early cancer treatment and can travel through the bloodstream, acting as tumor “seeds” by preparing future sites for metastasis.

The vesicles are mediated by a molecular structure called a chaperonin. Chaperonins help fold proteins that support the body’s normal cell function. But cancer cells hijack the folding process because they need more chaperonins to grow and spread.

Khaled’s breast cancer research project aims to distinguish which chaperonins help facilitate cancer cells’ growth and stop them without harming normal chaperonins. She hopes to develop a treatment that could regularly deliver her peptide to cancer patients to prevent metastasis. Patients, Khaled says, could receive her treatment while they are receiving chemotherapy and radiation to kill the original tumor.

Her prostate cancer research will confirm the chaperonin as a viable treatment target for prostate cancer, and if so, optimize the peptide specifically for use in men who have lethal forms of metastatic prostate cancer. Unlike breast cancer treatment, which seeks to prevent metastasis, prostate cancer research will see if a strengthened variant of the peptide can eliminate cancer that has already spread.

Fielding a Team Against Cancer

In the lab, Khaled’s peptide has shown success in preventing cancer cells from spreading. The challenge is how to engineer and deliver the treatment. For that, she is collaborating with Lorraine Leon, associate professor of materials science at UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science.

They are working to create a system that delivers the peptide to where the cancer has spread and at the same time protects the peptide from being destroyed in the bloodstream by the body’s immune and digestive systems.

“The College of Engineering and Computer Science is a great collaborator,” Khaled says. “Normally this peptide is very fragile but we’re working with materials sciences to create a protected peptide and then find [a] way to get it to the right spot. By having a variety of expertise and interests, we can work together to find new technologies and new ways to combat cancer.”

Leon specializes in biomaterials and polymer science. Her team studies how to build and program molecules to form assemblies for many purposes, including biomedical transport. She developed a specialized polymer that binds to the peptide, forming a large, water-soluble molecule. This allows it to travel easily through the bloodstream while keeping the peptide intact as it reaches its destination. The system drives the molecules to form self-assembled structures called micelles, which are assemblies of around 100 or so individual molecules, Leon says.

“In addition, we can tune the shape of these micelles, decorate them with targeting elements and make mixed versions of them where we incorporate different functionalities,” she says. “Our original designs have had great preliminary results so far. We will continue to optimize the designs moving forward.”

Leon is excited to team up with Khaled, and she says she looks forward to achieving more breakthroughs together as the projects progress.

“Working with Dr. Khaled has been very fun,” she says. “Our labs really complement each other. This is the beginning of a very long collaboration.”

Khaled and Leon are also working with Cancer Specialist and Associate Professor of Medicine Deborah Altomare, along with Burnett School of Biomedical Science Biostatistician Xiang Zhu, on the prostate cancer research project.

Khaled says strong research and community collaborations are critical to beating cancer.

“Cancer is a tough enemy,” she says. “But we have a great team.”

These studies are the first phase of preclinical research that may lead to new drugs in the future.

This work was supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs,��in the amount of $1,771,271,��through the Prostate Cancer Research Program Idea Development Award under Award No. HT9425-25-1-0487. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Researchers’ Credentials:

Khaled joined Ů��AV in 2002 after receiving her doctoral degree from the University of Florida and doing post-graduate training at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). A tenured professor, she has been funded by multiple R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the FDOH. She has published more than 100 manuscripts and abstracts and presented her research at numerous national and international scientific meetings. She has been recognized with research, leadership and teaching awards, including the NCI CURE Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to her research responsibilities, she teaches molecular immunology to UCF graduate students and serves as the College of Medicine’s assistant dean for faculty affairs.

Leon joined Ů��AV in 2017 after postdoctoral appointments at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, and she received her doctoral degree from the City University of New York. She is a recently tenured professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, where she also serves as the education director for the U.S. National Science Foundation PREM Center for Quantum Materials Innovation and Education Excellence. She has published more than 20 refereed publications. Other accomplishments include her being named a 2019 Emerging Investigator by the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, receiving an NSF CAREER award in 2021 and a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty award in 2022.

And that’s when he understood the promise of his medicine-engineering double degree (MEDD) from UCF.

The unique partnership between the College of Medicine and College of Engineering and Computer Science allows undergraduates to earn two baccalaureate degrees — one in mechanical engineering or any other engineering discipline UCF offers — and one in biomedical sciences. The program recognizes that the future of healthcare is in technology and that the workforce needs trained professionals who can understand the biology of disease and the engineering principles to create new healthcare solutions.

MEDD is demanding, requiring 163 credit hours to earn the two degrees. To date, seven students have completed the program.

“The MEDD program is probably the most challenging undertaking at UCF on the undergraduate level,” says William Self, professor of medicine who leads undergraduate education at the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences and helped create the medicine-engineering program. “This small cohort of scholars are driven by their desire to help mankind in the areas of healthcare and medicine through the engineering principles they learn along the way. I am so proud of these students for their drive and perseverance to complete this path and look forward to seeing how they impact society in the future.”

Senthil will graduate in August and hopes to work for a company that makes assistive devices or create his own start-up. Fellow Knight Michael Meyers ’25 graduated in the spring and will begin his master’s in electrical engineering this fall at UCF. He wants to develop better ways to diagnose diseases through enhanced imaging technologies, such as AI-assisted X-rays and non-invasive visual biopsies.

Limbitless Provides Inspiration for Medicine-Engineering Partnerships

Senthil always thought his future would include medical school. But while living in Texas during high school, he discovered how Texas A&M’s EnMED program encourages engineering majors to attend medical school and use their problem-solving skills to improve patient care. Senthil, a National Merit Scholar, received information from UCF about the MEDD program and the Burnett Honors College. UCF also offered a scholarship and a university visit. He liked UCF’s campus life and met other students who had used their MEDD studies to achieve their dreams. He decided to become a Knight.

On campus, he became active in Limbitless Solutions, a UCF organization that creates and provides 3D-printed, EMG-powered prosthetics for clinical trial participants. He started with technological development and then became part of the clinical research team, where he worked with patients and their families to understand how the prosthetic limbs worked and could increase independence.

“We don’t create this technology to fix someone,” he says. “The goal is to give them tools to express themselves.”

The Limbitless experience also provided Senthil with research opportunities. He has published research in multiple journals and presented his scientific findings at UCF and even nationally. One of those presentations was at RESNA, the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America. The non-profit professional organization is dedicated to maximizing “the health and well-being of people with disabilities through technology.”

Senthil was considering graduate and medical school when he saw the scope of assistive technologies on display at the conference. His new career goal — develop technology to help people.

“I want to create a device that fills a need, that enables others,” he says. “My passion is helping people improve their lives.”

Improving Diagnostics Through Imaging

Meyers grew up in the Orlando area. His mother is a nurse, and he always expected to be a pre-med major. Then, like Senthil, he received communication from UCF about the MEDD program and the Burnett Honors College. “The dual degree broadens our experience,” he says, “and gives you a big step up in applying what you’ve learned in school.”

He acknowledges the double degree courseload is tough, laughing as he discusses three lab courses each semester and having to train your brain to “flip flop” from memorizing microbiology terms to thinking about logical engineering processes. But he says his flip-flopping brain helped him better understand difficult subjects like immunology. “Engineering helped me understand why and how processes are happening when the body is fighting a disease,” he says.

At UCF, he used his dual training in research and in practice. He was an undergraduate research assistant in UCF’s Nanobio Sensors Lab and did internships at Northrop Grumman and Mitsubishi Power Americas.

He credits a class with UCF Professor of Electrical Engineering Wasfy Mikhael with inspiring him to understand how imaging and signal processing can create new systems to help physicians better see diseases like cancer in the body. That will be the focus of his masters training.

“The body in and of itself, is a well-oiled machine,” Meyers says. “With my dual degree, I want to figure out a way moving forward to make it even better.”

Now brace yourself. There’s another side to Chiarelli’s CV.

She’s bagged rattlesnakes in the Appalachians, collared Bengal tigers in India, tracked spiny crayfish in Australia, studied bats and fingernail-size coqui frogs in Puerto Rico and explored dangerous underwater caves in Florida. Chiarelli the reproductive physiologist is also Chiarelli the traveling elephant biologist.

“In the culture of medical academia, we tend to eat, breathe and sleep a singular subject,” she says. “So, when colleagues and students hear what I do they say, ‘Wow, that’s the coolest thing.’ In the context of health, I think it’s important to see the world from more than one dimension.”

Chiarelli’s adventures stretch back decades but have just recently drawn global attention. Since late 2022, she’s been selected as a fellow with the Explorers Club, the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society. In April, she embarked on her most ambitious field mission to date. For three weeks, she had the honor of carrying one of only 242 Explorers Club flags in existence as she travels by jeep, bike, foot and on the backs of animals over a 2,000-kilometer path in Nepal. It’s a route that has never been trekked by humans, though it has often been followed by elephants. And that’s why her team of three — a guide, a guard and Chiarelli — is going.

“The pathway has been fragmented over the years and has heightened what we know as ‘the human-elephant conflict,’” she says. “Indigenous people have been resettled into these areas, but it’s placed them in these corridors that elephants have used for centuries to migrate. Deforestation has made the situation worse for people who have no other living options and for elephants trying to find shelter and food.”

To Chiarelli, it isn’t productive to ask which species belongs and which one is encroaching. She wants to move the human elephant conflict closer to human elephant solutions.

“It’s a pipedream to think landscapes and habitats will be replenished to what they once were,” she says, referring to the elephant population in Africa, which has declined from 3 million to 400,000, and Asia, where only 27,000 elephants remain. “There’s a push and pull on natural resources for human needs and elephant needs. Nothing will improve until we first reduce daily hardships on the people. When they’re no longer struggling for food, education and medical needs, then they can focus on being stewards of the environment.”

She believes the way forward can be found along the forgotten path.

Chiarelli makes this clear: She didn’t go to Nepal as a first-world academic.

“I would never tell [someone] what to do just because I have college degrees,” she says. “Assumptions don’t work in places like this.”

Even satellite imagery of the pathway has even been deceptive, showing what appears to be lush protective forest rejuvenated from mass clearing in the 1900s. The picture, however, is very different from the ground. The fast-growing trees planted mostly to be cut for infrastructure do not provide a protective canopy for elephants, leaving them to wander into farms and tribal villages. And so, Chiarelli will use only two research tools: a curious mind and a listening ear.

“There’s a caste system in that region of Nepal. People in lowest part of the caste have no voice. Many of them have no formal education and little contact with people outside their villages. They can give us a better understanding of what needs to change, but no one has gone in to listen to them and document what we call ‘traditional ecological knowledge’ — wisdom through storytelling — until now.”

Chiarelli knows firsthand what it’s like to live in challenging circumstances. She lived in a trailer while growing up in rural Maryland. Her mom and dad had to work just to get by, and never finished high school.

“There weren’t a lot of opportunities,” she says. “When I told a guidance counselor in high school that I planned to go to college, he said, ‘Why? College isn’t for people like you.’”

Chiarelli remembered those words, but never followed them. She’d already begun to uncover opportunities in nature. She climbed trees to look into birds’ nests and crawled among the undergrowth to find snakes.

“To me, it was an explorers paradise,” she says.

She didn’t know there could be any other place in the world until her grandfather gave her boxes of old National Geographic magazines. Inside one box she found a book, Through Hell And High Water, compiled by members of the Explorers Club. The world began to open for Chiarelli when she enrolled at West Virginia University, with plans of becoming a veterinarian. She loved learning, yet she didn’t allow school or being a woman to confine her.

“I always thought there was a bigger purpose out there for me, and I’d eventually find it,” Chiarelli says.

This quest led to an internship at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Rhode Island. During her first rotation there, she worked with doctoral researchers trying to determine how a red panda’s health problems related to her reproductive cycle. The research opened Chiarelli’s eyes. The next rotation changed her life.

“I went to the elephant barn and everything just stopped,” she says. “I’d watch these elephants named Kate, Ginny and Alice comfort each other with their trunks. I saw them make people laugh. There’s a heartbreaking side to elephants in captivity, but once they’re here we have to give them the best care and move forward.”

Chiarelli never looked back. When she told a mentor that she wanted to work with elephants in their natural habitat, he said she’d have to find her own way to make it happen.

It was exactly what she wanted to hear.

“My overactive imagination has served me well in teaching and exploring. To me, the sky is always the limit.”

I must be watching someone else’s life. This is how Chiarelli feels whenever she goes to faraway places to live out of a backpack and document everything she sees.

“As [someone] who grew up in a trailer, every type of exploration has been like chasing dragons off the map for me,” she says. “When I take a step back, it’s surreal.”

The doctoral degree and white coat in Chiarelli’s bio are surreal, too.

“My overactive imagination has served me well in teaching and exploring. To me, the sky is always the limit,” she says.

And now here she is, carrying one of the Explorers Club flags that have been to the North Pole, South Pole, bottom of the oceans, summit of Mount Everest and to the moon. “Maybe a student or colleague who feels the odds are stacked against them will be inspired from knowing where I’ve been, where I am now and where I intend to go.”

He presented his research at the Burnett School’s spring Graduate Research Symposium, taking first place for his findings on how acute viral infections differ from persistent viral infections, with a goal of developing better therapies to treat them.

“I’ve always had an interest in infectious diseases and how to combat them since they’re an ongoing threat and we need to stay one step ahead of them,” Yousef said. “I hope my research provides the scientific knowledge necessary to develop effective therapeutics.”

This year’s presentations included the effects of cancer drugs on the heart, mapping the stomach to better understand abdominal pain and a DNA analysis of patients with rare genetic diseases. The event’s goal is to better prepare young scientists to present their findings to peers, funding agencies and potential employers.

“This symposium is like a real-world scientific conference. You have to be prepared to present and answer questions from experienced researchers,” said Jackie Zhao, a biomedical sciences professor and organizer of the symposium.

Each fourth-year Ph.D. student and second-year M.D./Ph.D. students required to present research at the symposium, but less senior Ph.D. candidates can be invited if faculty judge their research to be stellar. That was the case of third-year Ph.D. student Eugene Baffoe, who placed second in the competition for a study on new insights into how T-cells protect us against influenza.

In the months leading up to the presentation, graduate students compile their reserch data, create a presentation and write their abstracts. After their presenting, students answer questions from Burnett School faculty, who, in addition to teaching, conduct research in areas including cancer, neurodegenerative and infectious disease.

Zhao said he is seeing a trend of more graduate students like Yousef who are focused on using their scientific studies to improve patient care. “Every student is thinking about the problems they can solve and the cures for diseases,” he said. “They usually have a family member, or someone in their lives who suffers from an illness, and they want to contribute to research that helps people.”

Yousef examined the immune system to understand how the body struggles to fight persistent infections. When our bodies are infected with a virus, the immune system sends proteins called C’ to destroy the virus and infected cells. Because acute cells are sensitive to C’, they are destroyed by the protein quickly. However persistent infections are almost completely resistant. Yousef analyzed the cells and found that the persistently infected cells had a 10-fold increase in vitronectin, a gene that resists C’.

His study provides valuable insight into how persistent infection cells resist the immune system, opening the door for future researchers to develop therapeutics.

As he completes his Ph.D., Yousef is working in the lab of Griff Parks, who directs the Burnett School and is a nationally recognized virologist.  They are researching the body’s immune responses to Paramyxoviruses, which are responsible for many diseases in humans and animals, including measles, mumps and respiratory infections

Ph.D. candidate Jonatas Rolando presented his research on how a common drug used to treat leukemia causes harm to the patient’s heart. He said they prepared him for the next step he’ll face in his career.

“Presentations and conferences are a big part of being a scientist,” he said. “The most important thing in science isn’t the papers you publish, but how you bring the knowledge and info to society so they can use it to discover new things.”

Event Awardees

1st Place: Nasser Yousef | Mentor: Griffith Parks

Topic: Complement-Mediated Lysis Differs Between Parainfluenza Virus Acute Versus Persistently Infected Respiratory Tract Cells

2nd Place: Eugene Baffoe | Mentor: Kai McKinstry

Topic: The absence of direct type I interferon signaling in CD4 T cells responding to Influenza A virus suppresses their Th1 identity independent of STAT1 expression levels.

Audience Choice: Ethan Hass | Mentor: Cristina Fernandez-Valle

Topic: “A Personalized Medicine Approach to NF2-related Schwannomatosis Drug Repurposing: Targeted Investigations on a Pediatric Paraspinal Schwannoma”

This year’s Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences Graduate Research Symposium featured more than 50 research projects. Students shared their findings with faculty and competed for cash prizes for the top research.

The symposium provides young researchers with the opportunity to analyze their data and create compelling presentations that can ultimately get support from research funding organizations, says Jackie Zhao, a Burnett School professor and symposium chair.

“It takes a lot of effort and hard work to … get the data for these presentations. Without that, you cannot have a presentation,” he says. “Students also need to … pull that together into a good story that they can continue to work on — from the bench, into clinical trials and potentially into a new drug.”

Second-year doctoral student Aaron Beaird joined the Burnett School with a passion for understanding infectious diseases. He discovered a mentor in Tara Strutt, associate professor and College of Medicine immunology researcher.

Beaird’s research focuses on better understanding influenza so medicine can develop one complete vaccine, rather than changing the flu vaccine every year based on the disease’s newest strain.

Current vaccines are designed to attack influenza’s surface proteins, which change constantly. Beaird is looking at ways to attack the virus’ internal, more stable proteins to create a superpowered vaccine patients might only have to take once.

Generally, vaccines work by introducing a weak or inactive version of a virus to the body. This allows the immune system to recognize the virus as a threat and remember how to fight it when you’re exposed to the flu.

However, not all of the body’s memory cells are created equal. Beaird’s research is examining the makeup of the strongest memory cells to see how future vaccines can be developed that program these cells to help the body create superpowered defenses against the flu.

Beaird says that the conference gave him experience on the best ways to present his scientific discoveries.

“Having the opportunity to talk with my peers and faculty who understand this research and are contributing to the advancement of science is super exciting,” he says. “When we go to conferences, we are going to have to present posters, and you don’t want that to be your first time doing it, so you need practice presenting.”

The event also allows undergraduates and new graduate students to experience the variety of research happening at the Burnet School of Biomedical Sciences. Its faculty researchers are focused on finding cures and treatments for the diseases that plague humanity — including infectious, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.

“The Burnett research symposium is a great opportunity for our students and postdocs to showcase their research work to their peers and faculty,” says Saleh Naser, the Burnett School’s associate director of graduate studies. “It also allows our new students to be introduced to the ongoing research at the Burnett labs.”

Congratulations to this year’s winners in each of the categories:

Best Ph.D. poster

Anamaria Morales-Alvarez from Hung Nguyen’s lab

Poster: Metabolic Reprogramming of T Cells via GPR84 Inhibition Improves Cancer Immunotherapy

Best Postdoc poster

Jichao Ma from Zixi Jack Cheng’s lab

Poster: Identification of Spinal Afferent Innervation in the Rat Heart: Atria and Ventricles: Anterograde Tracing

Best M.S. poster

Erika A. Serravalle from William Self’s lab

Poster: Evaluating the Antimicrobial Properties of Fungus-Derived Xanthoquinodins against Clostridioides difficile

The selected fellows — Vladimir Boginski, Nichole Lighthall and Dinender Singla — will develop and implement programs that can help improve faculty grant success and accelerate the growth of the research enterprise.

Topics the fellows will focus on include research infrastructure, proposal development and specific research awards.

The fellowship begins in Fall 2024 and will continue through Summer 2025.

Meet the new Research Faculty Fellows:

Vladimir Boginski

Professor of industrial engineering and management systems and co-director of UCF’s Applied Operations Research Laboratory

How does it feel to be selected as a faculty fellow?

I am honored to be selected by the Office of Research as one of the faculty fellows this academic year. I am looking forward to the opportunity to use my experience in conducting interdisciplinary research and participating in large multi principal investigator grants to help UCF reach its strategic goals in terms of research funding and expenditures.

How do you hope to use this fellowship to further your research?

I hope that my experience in this role will be beneficial to my own research program development. I view this fellowship as a “two-way” opportunity. On one hand, I will be happy to offer my experience with various aspects of large grants and use it to the benefit of UCF achieving strategic funding goals. On the other hand, I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about the high-level strategic and administrative aspects of sponsored research that the UCF Office of Research deals with. In addition, it would be very interesting to learn about UCF faculty research in various fields and potentially identify new opportunities for interdisciplinary research. Therefore, I believe that this fellowship would be beneficial both to my own academic research career and to UCF.

What is your background in research and what does your work focus on?

My research background and interests are in the broad area of network science and engineering. Networks are everywhere in the modern world: application areas are abundant, spanning the domains of big data and physical/virtual complex systems. Examples of real-world networked systems include communication networks, interdependent infrastructure networks, social networks, biological networks, financial networks and many others. Because everything is connected in one way or another, my research spans a multitude of disciplines. Although specific details of my research may vary depending on the field, the underlying broad goals are often the same: to identify nodes and links that are critical for the integrity of a network, and to optimize the connections so that each system functions more efficiently.

What else should Knight Nation know about you?

Prior to joining UCF, I was a faculty member at the University of Florida, and during my academic career I have served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on multiple grants for over $16 million. I have always valued the exposure to research disciplines different from my own background, and I was honored be nominated to participate in the Frontiers of Engineering program administered by the National Academy of Engineering, which connects and facilitates collaborations between engineers across different fields. In this fellowship role, I hope to participate in initiatives to promote interdisciplinary research collaborations between UCF faculty.

Nichole Lighthall

Associate professor of psychology, lab director of UCF’s Adult Development and Decision Lab and associate program director of UCF’s Human Factors and Cognitive Psychology Ph.D. Program

How does it feel to be selected as a faculty fellow?

I feel honored to be selected — and excited to have the opportunity to train in university leadership. The primary feeling has been joy over getting to work with UCF faculty who want to gain more skills and success in grant development. I’ve already gotten involved in the Office of Research’s Grant Writing Academy and the faculty in that program are so motivated and excited about their research. It’s going to be very fulfilling to help them achieve their goals.

How do you hope to use this fellowship to further your research?

My primary goal for the fellowship is to enhance UCF’s success in securing funding from The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and generally expand its health-related research portfolio. As a cognitive neuroscientist working in cognitive aging, I depend on NIH funding to conduct my research. So, any success toward my fellowship goal will help my research program grow as well.

What is your background in research and what does your work focus on?

I have been studying cognitive aging since I was an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley over 20 years ago. Over time, my research interest came to focus on how decision-making changes in healthy aging and neurodegenerative diseases. Most recently, my lab has been trying to understand risk factors for financial exploitation in older adults, and how we can better protect seniors from scams and fraud. To address these questions, we use behavioral and neuroimaging approaches, but also consider social and health factors that might make some seniors more vulnerable.

What else should Knight Nation know about you?If you want help with developing your own NIH grants or have ideas for initiatives that we should develop to support NIH-funded research at UCF — please reach out to me. I’m here to help you!

Dinender Singla

Professor of medicine, UCF cardiovascular division leader and Florida Hospital chair in cardiovascular science

How does it feel to be selected as a faculty fellow?

Being selected as a faculty fellow is an extraordinary accomplishment, and I am deeply grateful for this opportunity. I feel a profound sense of pride in this achievement and am eager to contribute to the institution and its faculty.

How do you hope to use this fellowship to further your research?

This fellowship will enhance my in-depth research knowledge as I meet different faculty members, unit chairs, and deans. I took this position primarily because I want to serve the faculty at large, and I am keen to see their growth. This role allows me to mentor and guide other unit faculty, inspiring them to reach their full potential. The faculty growth is essential and will positively impact the lives of countless postdoctoral fellows and students. These insights and expertise will be highly valuable and will carry weight in shaping the future direction of different colleges, and university, which will ultimately support our community.

What is your background in research and what does your work focus on?

I have over 25 years of research experience in basic and translational research in cardiovascular sciences. I have brought more than $12 million in NIH grant funding to UCF. My major research area is stem cells and their derived exosomes for treating diabetes and anti-cancer drugs-induced cardiotoxicity. We have recently prepared specialized exosomes which can target tumors and kill them. Additionally, we have prepared exosomes to deliver drugs in the heart. This new research will lead to treat cancer patients more precisely. I am head of the Division of Metabolic and Cardiovascular Sciences in the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, which is part of UCF’s College of Medicine.

U.S. Congressman Darren Soto recently presented the funding to Deborah German, vice president for health affairs and founding dean of the medical school, and Griffith Parks, associate dean of research and director of the College of Medicine’s . Parks is an internationally recognized virus researcher.

Congressman Soto says he is honored to secure the support for “our hometown medical school because we all saw, with both Zika and COVID-19, the need to study diseases to improve the public’s health.”

During a tour of Parks’ lab, the College of Medicine leaders discussed the important role Orlando can play in protecting the nation and world from infectious disease.

“We are a global tourist destination with one of the world’s most visited airports,” German says. “The world is coming here. That’s why Orlando is the canary in the coal mine.”

The congressional funding will purchase genomic sequencing equipment that will allow College of Medicine researchers to identify the entire genetic makeup of viruses like COVID-19 and other microbes. Parks says such technology allows researchers to determine quickly the genetic makeup of new pathogens, a first step in identifying treatments. Microbiologists worldwide are continually monitoring pathogens — viruses and bacteria — that could lead to a pandemic.

“We’re certainly going to face more outbreaks like COVID-19,” Parks says. “It’s not if we’ll have another pandemic, it’s when.”

The ease and speed of worldwide travel was a key element in COVID-19’s spread, Parks says, adding that a pathogen research and surveillance core at UCF’s Health Sciences Campus — located just minutes from Orlando International Airport — would help facilitative earlier recognition of potential pandemics. On any given day, Orlando’s population increases by one million visitors.

The genome sequencing equipment will also assist College of Medicine researchers focused on finding new therapies for diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and provide research training for UCF students seeking careers in medicine and science.

“In addition to research, our mission is to train the next generation of biomedical scientists,” Parks tells Congressman Soto.

Mangroves are crucial because they naturally protect coastal shores from storm damage and serve as vital wildlife habitats around the world.

Scientists at the ��AV are working to preserve mangroves in Florida and across the world from an increasingly prevalent disease-causing variety of fungi that lies dormant but become active when the tree is exposed to stressors such as temperature fluctuation, pests or other diseases.

The disease does not yet have an official name, but it is being referred to by scientists as “Mangrove CNP.” It is caused by a group of fungal pathogens, including Curvularia, Neopestalotiopsis, and Pestalotiopsis, that causes yellowing and spots, and gradually weaken the mangrove until it ultimately dies.

Melissa Deinys, a UCF undergraduate researcher, and Jorge Pereira, a UCF graduate research assistant, are working to help turn the tide by developing and testing a promising nutritional cocktail comprised of nanoparticles to strengthen mangroves and counter the pathogens. The work is through Ů��AV professor Swadeshmukul Santra’s (MISA) center at UCF, which is a U.S. Department of Agriculture-National Institute of Food and Agricultural recognized Center of Excellence.

Mangrove CNP in Florida was first identified as causing mangrove die-offs by Deinys in 2019 in Miami through her work with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Later, the Marine Resources Council, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and restoration of Florida’s Indian River Lagoon, verified and cited her efforts.

Deinys and collaborators with the MRC and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden have determined that about 80% of the mangroves they had sampled have tested positive for at least one of the fungal pathogen species. She says they have sampled over 130 mangroves between the Indian River Lagoon and Miami mangrove populations.

The researchers are treating the mangroves by soaking them in a nutrient solution called “Mag Sun” (MgSuN), which is comprised of magnesium and sulfur nanoparticles. The mixture is a refinement of a previous graduate student’s formula that destroyed bacteria on tomatoes, Pereira says.

“The reason why we choose magnesium is because it is more environmentally friendly, and plants need a lot of magnesium,” he says. “I combined our magnesium formulation with a sodium polysulfide. Sulfur is one of those elements that is ubiquitous in the environment, and the idea is that you can combine both to actually enhance the anti-microbial capacity for both bacteria and fungi and you also supply key nutrients to the plants so that they can grow greener and leafier.”

During lab tests, the researchers say they observed growth inhibition of up to 95% when treated with MgSuN at varying concentrations compared to the untreated control.

The formula acts as a sort of antibiotic and multivitamin, and it has shown great potential in bolstering the health of infected mangroves at nurseries across Florida, Pereira says.

“We’ve done some experiments, and we have tested both in vitro and in plants,” he says. “We’re working with the nurseries, and we’ve seen it does kill the pathogens with no detrimental effects to the mangroves while kickstarting their health. They look great after treatment.”

Deinys is continuing her work with the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, MRC and nurseries across Florida while staying the course on her path to graduation and furthering her research at UCF.

She began studying the fungal pathogens in 2018 in Miami prior to being enrolled at UCF and has seen the mangroves become increasingly affected by the pathogens’ opportunistic nature.

“Back at the botanical gardens where I started, I would see the plants have these pathogens but not to a detrimental effect where we now see these organisms collapsing,” she says. “A mangrove nursery [The Marine Resources Council] had reached out to us, and they told us they had an insect infestation and then the whole population got wiped out by the pathogen. We’re also getting reports from places like Tampa that say areas that have more runoff are having more pathogen-related deterioration compared to 10 years ago.”

The fungi have been well-documented for some time, but volatile temperature changes, frequent storms and other increasing stressors open the door to the fungi taking a hold of the mangroves, Deinys says.

“They’re called opportunistic, and they’re called that for a reason,” she says. “They see a change in the plant and that’s when they start to take effect.”

How the pathogens are acquired is something that remains unclear, Deinys says. Researchers hypothesize it may be introduced through water, wind or insects, but further studies are needed to determine how it is acquired since it poses threat to mangrove health.

“You have to study all possibilities to determine what is the vector,” Deinys says. “We’ve seen papers and literature in other countries that have shown these pathogens for a long time. It’s been difficult because there is a disconnect in mangrove communities because we’re worlds apart and with different languages.”

The MgSuN nutrient solution is a treatment, but not a cure, Deinys says. There still are ample stressors that should be managed and mitigated, such as human-caused habitat destruction, in addition to treating the pathogens.

“I think there’s a big restoration effort to repopulate mangroves,” she says. “But first we need to look at the health of these mangroves and the health of the ecosystem before we determine what more we should do. We’re working with mangrove nurseries to see if we can together develop solutions.”

Maintaining and restoring mangroves is an essential component of ecological stewardship, and it’s a passion that Deinys hopes to continue throughout her career.

“I started this project my freshman year,” she says. “I didn’t want to leave what I was doing, and I came here with a mission. I met with Dr. Santra, our PI, and he wanted to help. He gave me a lot of freedom, and I’m really grateful.”

Deinys says that her research at UCF has been incredibly gratifying.

“There is a sense of community here that I found,” she says. “I joined the lab, and it felt like I found my family and that’s one of the best things to have come out of this experience. This has been one of my life’s passions, and I hope I’ll always stay with this project even after.”

Santra is encouraged by the research conducted by Pereira and Deinys, and he is hopeful it continues to bolster mangrove ecosystems.

“The UCF MISA center is dedicated to solving global problems that threaten agricultural sustainability,” he says. “We are excited to have another crop protection tool in our toolbox for protecting mangroves. I see the future of MagSun as a broad-spectrum fungicide, where GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) materials are empowered through nanotechnology.”

Further studies are needed to pinpoint which stressors are affecting the mangroves the most so that scientists can better preserve them, Pereira says.

“It’s very important to understand the stressors, and we need to really address if it’s a change in temperature, if it’s runoff or if it’s an additional pathogen,” he says. “In the meantime, we need to do something to prevent this damage from occurring.”

Researchers’ Credentials

Deinys graduated from BioTECH @ Richmond Heights High School, a conservation biology magnet school, where she began her research journey at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and specialized in botany. In Fall 2022, Deinys joined UCF and became a member of the Santra Lab the following spring. She is an undergraduate research assistant working towards her bachelor’s degree in biotechnology.

Pereira graduated from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras with a degree in industrial chemistry. He joined Santra’s lab in 2020 and is currently a graduate research assistant and working toward his doctoral degree in chemistry.

Santra holds a doctorate in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. After graduating, he worked at the University of Florida (UF) as a postdoctoral researcher and later as a research assistant professor at the UF Department of Neurological Surgery and Particle Engineering Research Center. In 2005, Santra joined UCF as an assistant professor at the , the and the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences. He is the director of the UCF Materials Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture center, a USDA-NIFA-recognized Center of Excellence.