Evolution@Vanderbilt

Research Interests: Dr. Suman R. Das, Ph.D. is a Associate Professor of Medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the Division of Infectious Diseases. Prior to joining Vanderbilt, Dr. Das was an Associate Professor in the Infectious Diseases Group at J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville MD. Using genomics tools, his group is trying to understand the underlying mechanisms that contribute to evolution of RNA viruses (i.e., influenza, RSV, rotavirus EEEV, and enterovirus). For the past four years, his lab is also interested in understanding virus, host and microbiome interactions, to identify if the host microbiota contributes to disease severity and long-term outcomes. Further, employing a two-pronged research approach, his lab is currently developing in vitro and in vivo models to understand the underlying mechanisms that contribute to antigenic evolution of influenza virus to escape the host immune response. By combining bioinformatics and synthetic genomics, his lab is evaluating the experimental data to better predict the future evolutionary path of influenza virus. Dr. Das received PhD in virology from the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi, India, where he studied molecular pathogenesis of HIV-1 subtype C Indian isolates.  After a short postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA, he joined the Laboratory of Viral Diseases in NIAID to work with Drs. Yewdell and Bennink as a Fogarty International fellow, where his research was focused on understanding the antigenic evolution influenza A virus. Prior to joining JCVI, he studied human B-cell response to influenza infection and vaccination at Emory Vaccine Center, in Atlanta.

Keywords: Viral genomics of Influenza, RSV, Rotavirus, Norovirus, EEEV, VEEV, West Nile virus, Chikungunya, Zika, Ebola, and Enterovirus, synthetic genomics, virus-host microbiome interactions, modeling of evolution of RNA viruses using in vitro, in vivo and computational tools