Ali Danesh

Ali is an immunologist with years of experience in the fields of infectious diseases and immunohematology. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Immunology, University of Toronto, Canada. Ali studied immune responses of patients and animal models to SARS Corona Virus. He investigated the role of cytokine storm and interferon-regulated genes in disease progression, which led to several publications. At the same time, he collaborated with other groups to study immune responses to influenza, West Nile Virus, Community Acquired Pneumonia, and especially, HIV. Ali joined the Norris Lab at Vitalant Research Institute, San Francisco, in January 2011 as post-doctoral fellow and worked on immune responses to extracellular vesicles. He acquired unique expertise in the fast-growing fields of exosomes and microvesicles, was promoted to Scientist I in January 2015, and continued working on extracellular vesicles and HIV. He joined the Jones Lab in January 2019 and started working on mechanisms of HIV latency, mainly focusing on the role of primary NK cells, BnAbs, and engineered T cells in HIV infection control in humanized mouse models.