WEST NILE RESEARCHER JOINS LA JOLLA INSTITUTE
By Ruth Marvin Webster
North County Times
LA JOLLA - April 23, 2005 - The La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology announced last week the appointment of Sujan Shresta as a faculty member in the institute's vaccine discovery division, part of the institute's new Emerging Infectious Disease and Biodefense Research Center.
Shresta, 33, comes to San Diego from the University of California, Berkeley where she spent four years as a research scientist specializing in dengue and West Nile viruses. Her appointment in this area of research is reportedly the first by a San Diego medical research institute.
Mitchell Kronenberg, the institute's president and scientific director, said Shresta will make an important addition to the institute, a nonprofit medical research center that focuses on research of the immune system.
"Her research is advancing knowledge on a group of dangerous infectious disease and nicely complements the scientific expertise already within the Institute," Kronenberg said.
Growing up in Nepal in Southeast Asia, Shresta has had firsthand knowledge of the devastating effects of infectious disease, especially in developing countries such as her own.
"Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world and Japanese encephalitis is a huge health problem there," she said. "When I started working on the dengue virus, there weren't many people working on these viruses in the U.S. But now, with the emergence of West Nile virus here, there is a greater awareness."
West Nile Virus is one of a key group of viruses called flaviviruses, which also includes St. Louis encephalitis, Japanese encephalitis and the virus that causes yellow fever.
Each year, dengue viruses kill thousands in Southeast Asia and Latin America, and since the mosquito able to transmit these viruses has been found in the southeastern United States, it also poses a potential health threat in this country. Commonly found in Africa, West Nile virus first entered the United States in 1999 and has spread rapidly, with the highest number of reported cases occurring in California.
One of Shresta's goals in studying dengue and West Nile viruses is to make a contribution to her native country, and she hopes her research may one day lead to the development of vaccines and treatments for either dengue or West Nile virus. Every year, she travels home to Nepal and visits schools and labs, donating used textbooks and "other things people throw away."
"When I go home, I see people without basic necessities," Shresta said. "I want to use my education to help them the best way I can."
A graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Mass., Shresta received her doctorate from Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis. She says she looks forward to working with scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology.
"I am really, really thrilled to be here," she said. "It is a privilege to be a new faculty member here at LIAI. I want to give it my all and do my very best. In some ways, I guess I'm not your typical scientist because I'm from Nepal. I am passionate how scientific research affects people and how it can help improve their lives."