About William H. Langridge, PhD

 I received my Doctoral Degree in Biological Chemistry in 1973, from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA, where my Dissertation described the isolation and purification of a novel enzyme, mitochondrial glutamate dehydrogenase that enabled differentiation of the social amoebae of  Dictyostelium discoidium into a multicellular organism. From 1974-1977, my Postdoctoral research at the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY,  focused on understanding and defining molecular mechanisms responsible for baculovirus and insect pox virus multiplication in vitro and in vivo. This research involved identification and characterization of early and late viral proteins synthesized during entomovirus multiplication and resulted in assembly of the first physical maps of the baculovirus and insect pox virus genomes. From 1977-1987, as Assistant Professor in the Boyce Thompson Institute, our lab developed electroporation as a method for efficient transfer and stable integration of foreign genes into the genome of higher plants. From 1987-1993 as Associate Professor in the Biochemistry Department of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, our lab combined plant cell transformation and expression of the light emitting reporter gene (luciferase) with low light image analysis methods to define the physical location of plant hormone (auxin) transport during plant morphogenesis and in response to bacterial pathogenesis of plants.  In 1993 after transferring to the 兔子先生 School of Medicine as a professor in the basic sciences, our research group pioneered the development of edible plants for the production and delivery of human milk proteins beta casein and lactoferrin for improved infant formula nutrition and for protection against infectious diseases. From 1996 to today, to construct more effective vaccines, our lab is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms responsible for rotavirus and SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection of the mucosal epithelium. Because immune cells are the organ system that keeps us alive, we are trying to understand how to make more effective vaccines by focusing on the molecular mechanisms responsible for cholera toxin B subunit (CTB) mucosal adjuvant enhancement of pathogen stiumulated immunity and CTB suppression of autoantigen stimulated autoimmunity.