Meet Our Team
Aneesh Thakur, DVM, MVSc, PhD
Aneesh Thakur is an immunologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization. He earned his DVM and MVSc in Microbiology and Immunology from the CSK Himachal Pradesh Agricultural University, India. From 2007-2009, he was a research scientist in the Tuberculosis Aerosol Challenge Facility at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi. He attended graduate school at the Technical University of Denmark and completed his PhD in Immunology. He then joined the CSK Himachal Pradesh Agricultural University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Veterinary Microbiology. From 2016-2020, he carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Copenhagen and became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacy. He joined VIDO in 2022 to establish and lead a research group focused on vaccine formulations for mucosal delivery.
Principal Investigator
Research Scientist, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization
Adjunct Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology
Team Members
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Karan Razdan
Postdoctoral Fellow
Karan Razdan obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS), Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. His research work focused on development, optimization and evaluation of antibiotic loaded lipid nanocarriers and microemulsion for the treatment of bacterial biofilm infected burn wounds. He is a gold medalist in M.Pharmacy and B.Pharmacy from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India. He was a Commonwealth split-site (Ph.D.) scholar at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom from 2019-2020 funded by the government of United Kingdom. He has worked in manufacturing of OSDs at Panacea Biotec Ltd. and briefly taught as assistant professor at Chandigarh group of colleges, Mohali, Punjab, India.
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Tasson da Costa Rodrigues
Postdoctoral Fellow
Tasson da Costa Rodrigues earned his PhD (2023) and MSc (2018) in Biotechnology from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. His research work was focused on the development of nanoparticle-based mucosal vaccines for pulmonary immunization against pneumococcus. His expertise includes production and purification of recombinant protein antigen, production of liposomes and other nanoparticles, formulation of dry powder microcarriers, and many in vitro and in vivo techniques. He was also a recipient of the Robert Austrian Research Awards from the ISPPD-12 in 2022 for the development of his work.
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Naga Suresh Kola
Graduate student
Naga Suresh Kola graduated from Technische Universität Dresden, Germany in molecular bioengineering with a research focus on DNA and lipid nanotechnology and notable for characterization of biomolecules. He is honored with a bachelor's degree in pharmaceutical sciences and expertise in the drug development process. His research point of view is that investigating the structural implications of biosystems (nanocarriers) with polyelectrolytes (oligonucleotides) aids in developing technological therapies.
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Dhruv Patel
Graduate student
Dhruv Patel has done his graduation from the Department of Pharmaceutics at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), SAS Nagar, India. His research focused on targeting ligand coated nano drug delivery systems (specifically polymeric nanoparticles) to the tumor sites. He has experience in development and characterization of the nano-formulations. He has completed his Bachelors in Pharmaceutical Sciences from L. M. College of Pharmacy, Ahmedabad, India. He has also worked at Dr. Reddys Laboratories where he developed oral solid formulations.
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Anna Martens-Koop
Graduate student
Anna Martens-Koop completed her Honors Bachelor's of Science (HBSc) in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her Honors project investigated the synergistic biofilm formation of various human-isolated bacterial species. She was an executive member on the Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology Student Association (BMISA) at the University of Saskatchewan in 2022-2023.
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Alaa Ibrahim
Graduate student
Alaa Ibrahim obtained her MSc degree in Nanoscience from University of Zewail City for Science and Technology, and BSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Egypt. Her research studies focused on nanomedicine and development of drug delivery systems for various biomedical applications such as cancer treatment and wound healing. She worked on the development of nanocarriers, polymeric and lipid nanocapsules, nanoemulsions, polymeric nanoparticles, nanofibers and metal-organic frameworks, using different fabrication and characterization techniques during her research work at the university of Zewail City and the American University in Egypt. She was a visiting researcher at Charite University, Berlin where she was trained in the in vitro and in vivo biological assessment of nanoparticles.
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Mehmet Nadir Sahinci
Graduate student
Mehmet Nadir Sahinci completed his master’s degree in Vaccine Studies at the Vaccine Development, Application, and Research Center at the Ege University, İzmir, Türkiye. His research focused on the design and development of an effective messenger RNA vaccine against Toxoplasma gondii. Additionally, he investigated the expression level differences between wild uridine and nucleoside-modified uridine (N1-methylpseudouridine). Throughout his studies, he gained experience in plasmid DNA design, cloning, in vitro transcription, and various techniques to evaluate mRNA functionality and recombinant protein expression levels.
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Krishna Patel
Summer student
Krishna is currently an undergraduate student at Western University (UWO) entering his fourth year of Honors Synthetic Biology. He has a great passion for medicinal biotechnology and vaccinology and is currently applying this interest to the research being conducted within the group. Specifically, taking part in crucial research to improve mRNA vaccine delivery platforms, in terms of lipid nanoparticles. Within his academic studies, Krishna has taken the initiative to participate in research being conducted at Western University. Particularly, Krishna gained experience in computational analysis of X-ray crystallography data representing protein-drug interactions for the inhibition of the LPS biosynthesis pathway of gram-negative bacteria.
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Giovanna Furman
Summer student
Giovanna Furman is a fourth-year undergraduate student in Biological Sciences at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Brazil. At UFPR, she is a research student at the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Laboratory, where she has worked on the formulation of nanoparticles for antiviral applications, particularly against COVID-19. She has experience assisting in vitro and in vivo assays, and in the formulation and characterization of polymer-based delivery systems, along with basic imaging techniques. As part of the Mitacs Globalink Research Internship, Giovanna is participating in a project focused on the development of inhalable mRNA vaccines using lipid nanoparticles (mRNA-LNPs) for enhanced mucosal immunity in the lungs. Giovanna is receiving training and providing support in the formulation of mRNA-LNPs, cell culture, in vitrotransfection, and data collection during characterization assays.