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Who We Are

WESTERN
RESEARCH LAB

The research personnel from the Arts/Gao/Mann labs are located on the 2nd floor of the SDRI building but are moving to new state-of-the-art CL2+/CL3 facilities with Western HIV Investigator Group (WHIG) in 2016. The 6000 sqft ImPaKT biochemistry labs and the 4000 sqft ImPaKT CL2+/CL3 facilities will house projects on: HIV vaccine development, HIV virulence and evolution, HIV Cure, and drug resistance.

UGANDA
RESEARCH LAB

A core of 5 to 8 Ugandan scientists work in the CFAR Uganda molecular virology labs at the JCRC, directed by Dr. Immaculate Nankya. This lab was established by Dr. Arts in 1998 with the primary mission to understand HIV pathogenesis and to provide advanced clinical virology assays. As a WHO Regional Lab, the CFAR Uganda labs have performed over 5000 HIV-1 drug resistance tests for patients in East Africa.

CLINICAL
INNOVATION

With Dr. Miguel Quinones-Mateu we have been at the forefront of new vaccine approaches and new tests for HIV-1 clinical care. The lab has patented new cloning strategies for viruses, new multiplex methods for SNP detection, and new pipelines for Next Generation Sequencing. The Arts/Gao/Mann lab is also a participant of various international vaccine studies, EAVI2020 and collaborator of the first HIV vaccine trial in Canada.

ImPaKT

The 6000 sqft ImPaKT biochemistry labs and the 5200 sqft ImPaKT CL2+/CL3 facilities reside on the 3rd and 6th floor of DSB, respectively. The facility offers access to advanced imaging modalities to be housed in a safe, secure and accessible CL2+/CL3 facility equipped with animal housing and tissue culture equipment.

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATORS

Prof. Robin Shattock, Imperial College, UK and EAVI2020: HIV-1 transmission, vaccine, and CURE studies
Drs. Sarah Fidler and Caroline Foster, Imperial College and St. Mary’s Hospital, UK: HIV-1 CURE studies
Dr. Immaculate Nankya, Joint Clinical Research Centre, Uganda: HIV-1 pathogenesis and drug resistance
Dr. Miguel Quinones-Mateu, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and UHTL, USA: Assay development and drug resistance
Dr. Jeff Bailey, University of Massachusetts, USA: Bioinformatics and HIV-1 evolution
Dr. Chuanwu Zhu, The Fifth People’s Hospital of Suzhou, China: HIV-1 treatment outcomes and drug resistance
Dr. David McDonald, CWRU, USA: Restriction factors and HIV-1 pathogenesis
Dr. Robert Salata, CWRU, USA: HIV-1 clinical cohorts in Uganda
Dr. Jonathan Karn, CWRU, USA and Dr. Gabriele Varani, University of Washington, USA: HIV-1 RNA regulation and peptidomimetic inhibitors
Dr. James Mullins, University of Washington, USA: HIV-1 immune escape



Why Us?

The Arts Lab

     The Arts laboratory was founded in 1997 by Dr. Eric J. Arts at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and then established a satellite laboratory at the Joint Clinical Research Centre in Kampala, Uganda. In 2014, we moved to Western University in London, Ontario from CWRU with strong research team and established a new home in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. Over the past 20 years, we were honoured to have over 100 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, clinical fellows, undergraduate students, visiting scientists and research assistants have worked with us on research projects related to HIV-1 pathogenesis, evolution, drug resistance, and molecular biology. Three faculty with strong collaborative ties and sharing common lab infrastructure.

     Arts Laboratory - committed to having fun, to developing new technologies, to being geeky scientists, and to finding a cure and vaccine for HIV-1

Meet the team behind our success.

Team HIV

Former Members
Dr. Eric Arts, BSc, PhD, PDF
Dr. Eric Arts, BSc, PhD, PDF
Canada Research Chair in HIV Pathogenesis and Viral Control. Professor & Chair of Microbiology & Immunology. Pretending to run an HIV lab but really spending more time on his bike. Absolutely LOVES 8 hour zoom-call days.
Rick Gibson, BA, MSc
Rick Gibson, BA, MSc
Research Scientist. Interested in virus evolution and drug resistance using deep sequencing and leveraging these tools for clinical use.
Former contestant on American Idol.
Yue Li
Yue Li
Dr. Yue Li has dedicated over two decades to outsmarting HIV-1 through innovative vaccine design, and currently serves as the Lab Director who ensures the Arts lab’s science is brilliant and the coffee fund is always full.
Courtney Walker
Courtney Walker
Lab manager. Science is expensive so stay on my good side if you want your orders quickly.
Minh Ha Ngo
Minh Ha Ngo, PhD
Post Doc studying HIV latency reversal via a novel HIV Like Particle (HLP).
Dylan Weninger, HBMSc
Dylan Weninger
PhD Candidate working on characterizing genomic packaging within lentiviruses. I understand whats going on ~70% of the time. The other 30% I spend yeast cloning.
Sashini Loku Galappaththi
Sashini Loku Galappaththi
PhD Candidate studying HIV glycosylation patterns and their effects on viral transmission
Alexander Gain, BMSc
Alexander Gain, BMSc
Shows up in the lab at 11am after "TAing".
Joshua Lutaakome, MSc
Joshua Lutaakome, MSc
Geogussr master.
Suubi Ivy Grace Chimulwa, BBLT, MSc
Suubi Ivy Grace Chimulwa, BBLT, MSc
Working on HIV Drug Resistance and a little bit of everything in between. Elyon House repr.

View Our Publications

westernartslab@gmail.com
Western University.
1151 Richmond St, London ON
519-661-2111 x83427