Academic Background

John L. Sullivan received his BS from LeMoyne College in 1968 and his MD from SUNY Upstate Medical School, Syracuse, in 1972. From 1973 to 1975, he served as a staff associate in the Division of Virology at the NIH Bureau of Biologics in Bethesda, Maryland. He completed his pediatric training and clinical immunology at the University of Washington. In 1978, he joined the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In 1984 the American Heart Association awarded him an Established Investigatorship. Dr. Sullivan served on the Immunological Sciences Study Section 1982-1986 and was a Charter Member of AIDS and Related Research Study Section (1990-92) of the NIH.

Epstein-Barr Virus [EBV] and Human Immunodeficiency Virus [HIV]

Research in this laboratory is aimed at understandingthe pathogenesis of chronic infection with Epstein-Barr Virus [EBV] and Human Immunodeficiency Virus [HIV]. Studies of EBV are focused on the nature of the immune response which controls but does not eradicate viral replication and the nature of the immune defect which results in the X-linked lymphoproliferative syndrome. Studies of HIV are focused on the elucidation and characterization of HIV gene mutations which result in infections associated with long term control of viral replication and/or lack of disease progression.

Experimental therapeutic and preventative vaccine approaches are also being studied. These include combination antiretroviral agents to interrupt viral replication and recombinant vector or live attenuated vaccines to prevent HIV-1 infection. Of particular interest is the development of therapeutics and vaccine regimens which can be used in the developing world to interrupt maternal to child transmission.