David W. Pascual, Ph.D.
University of Wyoming
David W. Pascual, Ph.D. is a professor and Wyoming Excellence Chair in Brucellosis at the University of Wyoming. He received his master’s degree and Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson.
Throughout his long career as a mucosal immunologist, Pascual has developed therapeutics, vaccines and vaccine delivery platforms to elicit the desired protective response. One of his group’s oral therapeutics, Lactococcus lactis expressing colonization factor antigen I (CFA/I) fimbriae, is currently being tested in 2 separate Phase I clinical trials to alleviate inflammation: one for rheumatoid arthritis and another for Sjögren’s Syndrome. Another example of his work is the development of an anti-gonococcal vaccine. He used the honeybee microbiome-specific Snodgrassella alvi, which shares some homology with Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Parenteral and nasal vaccination with S. alvi induces cross-reactive Abs to N. gonorrhoeae, and these serum Abs have bactericidal activity. When mice were vaccinated intraperitoneally, elicited Abs provided exquisite protection against vaginal N. gonorrhoeae challenge.
His group’s vaccine development includes znBM and znBA mutant prototypes against brucellosis that confer nearly complete protection in the mucosal and systemic immune compartments against different Brucella strain challenges, particularly in their capacity to seed the epithelium with resident memory T cells, and possibly, resident memory B cells. Furthermore, he has led testing of various live and subunit delivery platforms to combat infections, such as brucellosis, ETEC, Salmonella, gonorrhea, botulism, plague and HIV.
Throughout his long career as a mucosal immunologist, Pascual has developed therapeutics, vaccines and vaccine delivery platforms to elicit the desired protective response. One of his group’s oral therapeutics, Lactococcus lactis expressing colonization factor antigen I (CFA/I) fimbriae, is currently being tested in 2 separate Phase I clinical trials to alleviate inflammation: one for rheumatoid arthritis and another for Sjögren’s Syndrome. Another example of his work is the development of an anti-gonococcal vaccine. He used the honeybee microbiome-specific Snodgrassella alvi, which shares some homology with Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Parenteral and nasal vaccination with S. alvi induces cross-reactive Abs to N. gonorrhoeae, and these serum Abs have bactericidal activity. When mice were vaccinated intraperitoneally, elicited Abs provided exquisite protection against vaginal N. gonorrhoeae challenge.
His group’s vaccine development includes znBM and znBA mutant prototypes against brucellosis that confer nearly complete protection in the mucosal and systemic immune compartments against different Brucella strain challenges, particularly in their capacity to seed the epithelium with resident memory T cells, and possibly, resident memory B cells. Furthermore, he has led testing of various live and subunit delivery platforms to combat infections, such as brucellosis, ETEC, Salmonella, gonorrhea, botulism, plague and HIV.