Research Associate Professor
Director, Emerging Pathogens Facility
randy.albrecht@mssm.edu

Research Interests
My research broadly focuses on host-pathogen interactions involving respiratory viruses, including select agent pathogens that require enhanced BSL3 biocontainment. Specific areas of research include studies examining replication, pathogenesis, and transmission of respiratory viruses, innate and adaptive immune responses to influenza virus infection or vaccination, development of novel vaccines, development of serological assays to detect neutralizing antibodies against respiratory viruses, and studies examining adaptation of viruses to new hosts.  I am currently expanding my expertise with small animal models of influenza to other viral respiratory diseases. These research interests have enabled me to develop expertise with biosafety and biosecurity principles and practices for conducting experiments with viral pathogens in biocontainment. Accordingly, I serve as the Director of the Emerging Pathogens Facility (EPF) of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute (GHEPI), and as Responsible Official for the institution’s Select Agents and Toxins Program.

Notable Publications
Nachbagauer, R., W.-C. Liu, A. Choi, T. J. Wohlbold, T. Atlas, M. Rajendran, A. Solórzano, F. Berlanda-Scorza, A. García-Sastre, P. Palese, A. Albrecht, and F. Krammer. 2017. A universal influenza virus vaccine candidate confers protection against pandemic H1N1 infection in preclinical ferret studies. NPJ Vaccines 2:26. equal authorship.

Tundup, S., M. Kandasamy, J. T. Perez, N. Mena, J. Steel, T. Nagy, A. Albrecht, and B. Manicassamy. 2017. Endothelial cell tropism is a determinant of H5N1 pathogenesis in mammalian species. PLoS Pathogens 13:e1006270.

DiPiazza, A., K. Richards, F. Batarse, L. Lockard, H. Zeng, A. Garcia-Sastre, A. Albrecht, and A. J. Sant. 2016. Flow Cytometric and Cytokine ELISpot Approaches To Characterize the Cell-Mediated Immune Response in Ferrets following Influenza Virus Infection. Journal of Virology 90:7991-8004.

Krammer, F., R. Hai, M. Yondola, G. S. Tan, V. H. Leyva-Grado, A. B. Ryder, M. S. Miller, J. K. Rose, P. Palese, A. Garcia-Sastre, and A. Albrecht. 2014. Assessment of influenza virus hemagglutinin stalk-based immunity in ferrets. Journal of Virology 88:3432-3442.

Langlois, R. A., A. Albrecht, B. Kimble, T. Sutton, J. S. Shapiro, C. Finch, M. Angel, M. A. Chua, A. S. Gonzalez-Reiche, K. Xu, D. Perez, A. Garcia-Sastre, and B. R. tenOever. 2013. MicroRNA-based strategy to mitigate the risk of gain-of-function influenza studies. Nature Biotechnology 31:844-847. equal authorship.