Dr Rana Chakraborty

Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine
Senior Associate Consultant
Professor of Pediatrics, Immunology, and Obstetrics and Gynecology 
Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine

Hosts: Prof Clive Gray [IDM/Div of Immunology] & Ass.Prof Mushi Matjila [Dept. of Obstetrics & Gynaecology]

Rana Chakraborty is a dual certified Professor of Pediatrics at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine having previously served as the Medical Director of the Grady Ponce Family and Youth Clinic (GPFYC) – the largest clinic for Pediatric and Adolescent HIV care in North America. He actively maintains a leadership role within a number of national organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). He was former Chair of the Committee for Pediatric AIDS (COPA) at the AAP. One of his most significant career achievements has been development and implementation of a national course with CME accreditation on pediatric and adolescent HIV management as Course Director. He was previously an MRC Clinical Training Fellow at the University of Oxford. His lab has significant and unique expertise in placental immunology and has extensively characterized and published on infection of trophoblasts, cord blood mononuclear cells (and placental macrophages (Hofbauer cells - HCs) with HIV-1, human cytomegalovirus and ZIKA virus. His lab was the first to demonstrate that ZIKV infects and replicates in primary human HCs. Viral replication coincides with induction of type I interferon (IFN), proinflammatory cytokines, and antiviral gene expression but with minimal cell death. He has also demonstrated that CBMCs and (more recently) HCs primed with HCMV up-regulate CCR5 expression in CD4+CCR5+ T central memory cells and HCs, which become susceptible to HIV-1 infection.