Biography
Dr. Weiskopf, devoted her career to understanding the adaptive immune response to emerging infectious viruses relevant to human health and disease. Following her PhD, she obtained post-doctoral training at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) where her efforts were dedicated to characterize human dengue virus-specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cell responses in samples from areas with endemic dengue infection and following experimental dengue vaccination. As a Research Assistant Professor in the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccine Research at LJI she have focused on the characterization of Zika and Chikungunya virus specific T cell responses and also became interested in the effects of pre-existing immunity against dengue virus to subsequent zika virus infection. Most recently she have characterized SARS-CoV-CoV-2 specific T cell responses after natural infection and vaccination. Understanding adaptive immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 is important for vaccine development efforts, interpreting disease pathogenesis, and calibration of future pandemic control measures.