Chief, Tissue Analysis Core
Education:
Ph.D., School of Medicine, National University of Athens, Greece
Biography
Dr. Petrovas has been working in the field of HIV/SIV pathogenesis for more than 15 years. He obtained his Ph.D. in immunology studying anti-phospholipid antibodies in autoimmunity and HIV at the School of Medicine, National University of Athens, Greece. He pursued post-doctoral work at the Department of Biochemistry, Boston University and Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Drexel University before he joined the Immunology Laboratory at VRC in 2005. His previous work focused on the mechanisms mediating the “exhaustion” of SIV/HIV- specific CD8 T cells and he was the first to describe PD-1 as a mediator of SIV/HIV-specific CD8 T cell survival. More recently, his research has been focused on the dynamics of CD4 and CD8 T cells at tissue level and particularly in the lymph node follicles in HIV and SIV infection. His work was the first to describe the phenotype, localization, molecular profile and dynamics of Tfh CD4 T cells in acute and chronic SIV infection. Currently, he is characterizing the dynamics of tissue immune cells in HIV/SIV and cancer and developing tools to understand the interplay between inflammation, adaptive immunity, and tissue antigens.
His current main affiliation is Associate Professor, University of Lausanne, Lausanne Switzerland, Director of the Laboratory of Tissue Investigation, Institute of Pathology, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV).