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About the ENVIT Program

The overall goal of “Enhancing Virology Training (ENVIT) through Summer Research” is to prepare and increase the number of underrepresented minority (URM) students in virology-focused careers through didactic, hands-on, mentored, and career-development training.

About the Program: About

Program at a Glance

1. Provide students with a 10-week virology research training that include didactic lectures in fundamentals of virology and career-development topics for virology-focused research and education career.


2. Promote evidence-based education in virology by training the students on the methods in fundamental virology research and specialized research techniques in a laboratory setting.


3. Engage each student with leading virology researchers (faculty mentor, students, postdoctoral fellows, and staff) to stimulate their interest to consider further education and training in the area of virology.


4. Develop oral and poster presentation skills of students through scientific presentations of their research internally at MMC Virology Summer Symposium and externally at one national conference.

About the Program: Text

Program Benefits


1. Fully Paid Summer Research Experience in cutting edge virology-focused research.


2. Obtain didactic and hands-on training in basic, translational, and/or clinical research.


3. Mentored research training in the laboratory of highly accomplished investigators.


4. Participate in weekly research seminar series in virology


5. Participate in small-group learning sessions in virology


6. Improve interview and oral presentation skills


7. Training in Critical and Independent thinking


8. Interact with faculty and students at Meharry and Vanderbilt

9. Present and participate in local and national meetings on virology focused research

About the Program: About

Program Leadership

1. Program Director. Dr. Chandravanu “CV” Dash, PhD.
2. Associate Program Director. Dr. LaMonica Stewart, PhD.
3. Virology Mini-Course Director: Dr. Jui Pandhare, PhD.
4. Virology Research Laboratory Training Director: Dr. Muthukumar Balasubramaniam, PhD.
5. Chair of the Program Advisory Committee (PAC): Dr. Evangeline Motley-Johnson, PhD.

About the Program: Text

Program Mentors


Investigator                      Institution                                                                      Research Interests

Chandravanu Dash, PhD

MMC

Retroviral Replication, Antiviral Drug Target

Chris Aiken, PhD

VUMC

Molecular Biology of Retroviruses

Vladimir Berthaud, MD

MMC

Clinical Virology, Clinical Immunology

James Crowe, MD

VUMC

Vaccines, Viral Immunology

Mark Denison, MD

VUMC

Viral Replication, Antiviral Drug Development

Xinhong Dong, PhD

MMC

Virus Assembly, Budding and Release

Iveline Georgiev, PhD

VUMC

Vaccines and Viral Immunology

David Haas, MD

VUMC

HIV Pharmacogenomics and Clinical Trials

Spyros Kalams, MD

VUMC

Vaccines and Viral Immunology

John Karijolich, PhD

VUMC

Virus Replication

John Koethe, MD

VUMC

Clinical Virology, Immunology and Clinical Trials

Bindong Liu, PhD

MMC

Retroviral Replication

Simon Mallal, MBBS

VUMC

Clinical Immunology and Clinical Pathology

Kristen M. Ogden, PhD

VUMC

RNA Virus Replication

Jui Pandhare, PhD

MMC

HIV-associated Neuronal Dysfunction

Waldemar Popik, PhD

MMC

Molecular Virology

Byeongwoon Song, PhD

MMC

Viral Replication and Host Factors

Hua Xie, PhD

MMC

Viruses and Oral Biology

About the Program: CV
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