Catarina E. Hioe, Ph.D., is currently a professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases. She is also a Research Health Scientist at the James J Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, NY. She has held both positions since 2015. She is the director of the Hioe Laboratory.

Chitra Upadhyay, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases. Her  research focuses on understanding the antiviral functions of antibodies against the variable loops of HIV-1 and their mechanism of protection. The V2 and V3 loops on HIV-1 envelope are valuable targets for immunogen design but are conformationally masked and poorly accessible by neutralizing antibodies. This masking of the neutralizing epitopes present in the V2 and V3 regions of HIV-1 is regulated by distinct mechanisms. Neutralization of relatively resistant HIV-1 isolates is achievable under modified conditions when the antibodies are allowed to interact with the virus for a prolonged period of time. Additionally, I am also interested in the extraordinary functional and antigenic heterogeneity of the HIV-1 envelope protein, specifically its glycosylation, which is a vital part of the HIV-1 architecture. My research focuses on the role of diverse compositions of N-linked glycans on HIV-1 Env, such as high-mannose-type and complex-type glycans, on viral infectivity, regulation of spike conformation, immune evasion, and virus transmission.