Profile
Anthony Griffiths, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, investigator in the Bond Life Sciences Center, and director of the Laboratory for Infectious Disease Research (LIDR). He has dedicated his career to working with viruses, which form the basis of his research program.
Dr. Griffiths studied herpes simplex virus as a graduate student at Cambridge University and as a post-doc at Harvard Medical School. He established his own group at Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio, where he broadened his interest to viruses that require high (BSL-3) and maximum (BSL-4) containment. Much of this work focused on Ebola virus but also included other viruses. From there, Dr. Griffiths moved to the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories at Boston University to continue the work in high and maximum containment, adding coronaviruses to the research program.
The group has a goal to understand fundamental virological processes to aid the development of vaccines and therapeutics. The LIDR works with a range of viruses utilizing molecular techniques and animal models for infectious disease research to facilitate this work.
Academic Information
Office
1201 Rollins St
Bond Life Sciences Center Rm 471G
Columbia, MO 65211
United States
Research Interests
- Viruses
- Vaccine development
- Therapeutic development
Areas of Expertise
- Virology
- Work in biocontainment
- Molecular biology
- Molecular virology
- Host-pathogen interactions
- Animal modeling
Education & Training
Degrees
1997 PhD, Cambridge University
1993 BSc (Hons), Reading University
Fellowship
1997 - 2006 Harvard Medical School
Publications
Selected Papers
- Wirchnianski, Nyakatura, Herbert, Kuehne, Abbasi, Florez, Storm, McKay, Dalley, Kuang, Abelson, Wec, Chakraborti, Holtsberg, Shulenin, Bornholdt, Aman, Honko, Griffiths, Dye, Chandra, Lai.
Design and characterization of protective pan-ebolavirus and pan-filovirus bispecific antibodies.
PLoS Pathogens (2024) Apr 11;20(4):e1012134. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1012134. - Ye, Bonam, McKay, Plante, Walker, Zhao, Huang, Chen, Xu, Liu, Harmon, Gao, Song, Zhang, Plante, Griffiths, Chen, Hu, Xu. (2024)
Monovalent SARS-COV-2 mRNA vaccine using optimal UTRs and LNPs is highly immunogenic and broadly protective against Omicron variants.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 10.1073/pnas.2311752120 - Jiarong Zhou, Zhidong Zhou, Edward Zhang, Yiyan Yu, Nishta Krishnan, Daniela Silva Ayala, Ronnie H. Fang, Anthony Griffiths, Weiwei Gao and Liangfang Zhang.
Extending the in vivo residence time of macrophage membrane-coated nanoparticles through genetic modification.
Small 19, 52 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202305551 - Shrock EL, Timms RT, Kula T, Mena EL, West AP Jr, Guo R, Lee IH, Cohen AA, McKay LGA, Bi C, Leng Y, Fujimura E, Horns F, Li M, Wesemann DR, Griffiths A, Gewurz BE, Bjorkman PJ, Elledge SJ.
Germline-encoded amino acid-binding motifs drive immunodominant public antibody responses.
Science. 2023 Apr 7;380(6640):eadc9498. doi: 10.1126/science.adc9498 - Chang, M., Tomasovic, L., Kuzmina, N., Ronk, A., Byrne, P., Johnson, R., Storm, N., Olmedillas, E., Hou, Y., Shaefer, A., Leist, S., Tse, L., Ke, H., Coherd, C., Nguyen, K., Kamkaew, M., Honko, A., Zhu, Q., Alter, G., Saphire, E., McLellan, J., Griffiths, A., Baric, R., Bukreyev, A., Marasco, W.
IgG-like bispecific antibodies with potent and synergistic neutralization against circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.
Nature Communications (2022) 13(1):5814. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-33030-4 - Nitikin, P.A., DiMuzio, J.M., Dowling, J.P., Bingaman-Steele, J.L., Heimbach, B.C., Henriquez, N., Nicolescu, C., Polley, A., Sikorski, E.L., Howanski, R.J., Nath, M., Shukla, H., Scheaffer, S.M., Finn, J.P., Liang, L.F., Smith, T., Storm, N., McKay, L.G.A., Johnson, R.I., Malsick, L.E., Honko, Griffiths, A., Diamond, M.S., Sarma, P., Geising, D.H., Morin, M.J., Robinson, M.K.
Preclinical Efficacy of IMM-BCP-01, a highly active patient derived anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody cocktail.
Sci Immunol. 2022. eabI9943. PMID: 35771946 - Windsor IW, Tong P, Lavidor O, Sanjari Moghaddam A, McKay LGA, Gautam A, Chen Y, MacDonald EA, Yoo DK, Griffiths A, Wesemann DR, Harrison SC.
Antibodies induced by ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain that cross-neutralize variants from Alpha to Omicron BA.1.
Sci Immunol. 2022 May 10; eabo3425 - Nabel KG, Clark SA, Shankar S, Pan J, Clark LE, Yang P, Coscia A, McKay LGA, Varnum HH, Brusic V, Tolan NV, Zhou G, Desjardins M, Turbett SE, Kanjilal S, Sherman AC, Dighe A, LaRocque RC, Ryan ET, Tylek C, Cohen-Solal JF, Darcy AT, Tavella D, Clabbers A, Fan Y, Griffiths A, Correia IR, Seagal J, Baden LR, Charles RC, Abraham J.
Structural basis for continued antibody evasion by the SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain.
Science. 2021 Dec 2;:eabl6251. PMID: 34855508 - Lan TCT, Allan MF, Malsick LE, Woo JZ, Zhu C, Zhang F, Khandwala S, Nyeo SSY, Sun Y, Guo JU, Bathe M, Naar A, Griffiths A, Rouskin S. 2022.
Secondary structural ensembles of the SARS-CoV-2 RNA genome in infected cells.
Nature Communications 13:1128 - Ai, X., Wang, D., Honko, A., Duan, Y., Gavrish, I., Fang, R. H., Griffiths, A., Gao, W., & Zhang, L. (2021).
Surface Glycan Modification of Cellular Nanosponges to Promote SARS-CoV-2 Inhibition.
Journal of the American Chemical Society, 143(42), 17615–17621. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.1c07798. PMID: 34647745 - Tong P, Gautam A, Windsor IW, Travers M, Chen Y, Garcia N, Whiteman NB, McKay LGA, Storm N, Malsick LE, Honko AN, Lelis FJN, Habibi S, Jenni S, Cai Y, Rennick LJ, Duprex WP, McCarthy KR, Lavine CL, Zuo T, Lin J, Zuiani A, Feldman J, MacDonald EA, Hauser BM, Griffths A, Seaman MS, Schmidt AG, Chen B, Neuberg D, Bajic G, Harrison SC, Wesemann DR.
2021. Memory B cell repertoire for recognition of evolving SARS-CoV-2 spike.
Cell 184:4969-4980 e15 - Johnson RI, Boczkowska B, Alfson K, Weary T, Menzie H, Delgado J, Rodriguez G, Carrion Jr R, Griffiths A†.
Identification and characterization of defective viral genomes in Ebola virus infected rhesus macaques.
J Virol. 2021; Jun 23;JVI0071421. PMID: 34160256 - Clark SA, Clark LE, Pan J, Coscia A, McKay LGA, Shankar S, Johnson RI, Brusic V, Choudhary MC, Regan J, Li JZ, Griffiths A, Abraham J.
SARS-CoV-2 evolution in an immunocompromised host reveals shared neutralization escape mechanisms.
Cell 2021; 184(10):2605-17. PMID: 33831372; PMCID: PMC7962548 - Storm N, McKay LG, Downs SN, Johnson RI, Birru D, de Samber M, Willaert W, Cennini G, Griffiths A†.
Rapid and complete inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 by ultraviolet-C irradiation.
Sci Rep 2020; 10(1):22421. PMID: 33380727; PMCID: PMC7773738