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Associate Professor

Girish Neelakanta

Biomedical and Diagnostic

Orcid identifier0000-0001-8374-9604
  • Biomedical and Diagnostic
  • University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Biomedical and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, 2407 River Dr., Knoxville, TN, 37996, United States

BIO

Dr. Neelakanta’s laboratory at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville researches human and animal tick-borne diseases such as human anaplasmosis, Lyme disease, relapsing fever, and Rickettsiosis. His laboratory has characterized some of the tick and bacterial molecules that could be potentially implemented in the development of vaccines against tick-borne diseases. The immediate goal for his laboratory is to test vaccine efficacy of these molecules in animal models. Currently, Dr. Neelakanta’s research is funded with an NIH R01 award. Before moving to UTK as a tenured Associate professor, Dr. Neelakanta served as an Associate research scientist at Yale University School of Medicine, CT, and as an Assistant and Associate professor with tenure at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA. Current research from his laboratory at UTCVM is focused on understanding various aspects of vector-borne diseases including studies on understanding molecular aspects of host-pathogen interactions, development of vaccines, and vector biology.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Associate Professor
    University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Knoxville, United States26 Dec 2020
  • Associate Professor
    Old Dominion University, Department of Biological Sciences, Center for Molecular Medicine, Norfolk, United States1 Jul 2018 - 25 Dec 2020
  • Assistant Professor
    Old Dominion University, Department of Biological Sciences, Center for Molecular Medicine, Norfolk, United States22 Aug 2012 - 30 Jun 2018
  • Associate Research Scientist
    Yale School of Medicine, Internal Medicine, Section of Infectious Diseases, New Haven, United States1 Jun 2010 - 21 Aug 2012

DEGREES

  • PhD
    University of Cologne, Institute for Genetics, Cologne, Germany
  • M.Sc.,
    Bangalore University, Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology, Bengaluru, India

POSTGRADUATE TRAINING

  • Postdoctoral Associate
    Yale School of Medicine, Internal Medicine, Section of Infectious Diseases,, New Haven, United States