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    • Home
    • Research Projects
    • Publications
    • Lab Members
    • Tick Surveillance
    • NY Tick Results
    • Protect against ticks
    • Thangamani Lab in Media
    • Measurable outcomes
    • Powassan virus
    • Contact us

  • Home
  • Research Projects
  • Publications
  • Lab Members
  • Tick Surveillance
  • NY Tick Results
  • Protect against ticks
  • Thangamani Lab in Media
  • Measurable outcomes
  • Powassan virus
  • Contact us

Saravanan Thangamani, MS, PhD, Principal Investigator

Dr. Saravanan Thangamani is a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the SUNY Upstate Medical University. He is also the Director of SUNY Center for Environmental Health and Medicine, and Vector Biology Laboratories. He is an expert in vector-borne diseases, specifically tick-borne and mosquito-borne diseases caused by pathogens such as the Lyme disease agent, Borrelia burgdorferi, Powassan virus, Heartland virus, Chikungunya virus, West Nile virus and Zika virus. His research attempts to: (1) understand the environmental factors contributing to the emergence and reemergence of vector-borne diseases in the United States; (2) develop anti-tick vaccines; (3) develop novel transmission control methods, including the development of transmission blocking vaccines for mosquito and tick-borne diseases; (5) vector determinants of arbovirus transmission; (4) effect of co-infections on the clinical outcome of Lyme disease.


E-mail: thangams@upstate.edu

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Erin Reynolds BS, Lab Manager & Research Associate

Research Projects: 

1. Development of small animal models for arbovirus infection and pathogenesis.

2. Pre-clinical evaluation of vaccines and therapeutics against vector-borne pathogen infections.

3. Tick colony maintenance

4. Managing lab operations

Jacob Nelson, Post-Doctoral Fellow

Research Project: 

Neuropathogenesis of flavivirus infection.

Dakota Paine, Graduate Student

Research Project: 

Immunomodulation at the tick-virus-host interface during Powassan virus transmission.

Jessica Crooker, MD/PhD Graduate Student

Research Project: 

Impact of co-infections on the clinical outcome of Powassan encephalitis and Lyme disease

Ben Andrews, Research Associate

Research Project: 

Community-engaged tick surveillance to track the emergence of ticks and tick-borne diseases in New York

Ivona Petzlova, Research Associate [volunteer]

Research Project: 

1. Rearing & maintenance of mosquito colonies.

2. Mosquito vector competency studies.


Alex Schmidt, Research Associate [student employee]

Research Project: 

1. Upstate Tick Testing Program


Gary Wang, Research Associate [student employee]

Research Project: 

1. Upstate Tick Testing Program


Lab alumni

Dr. Meghan Hermance, PhD

Graduate Student, Post-doctoral fellow, and Research Scientist.

Current status: Assistant Professor, University of South Alabama

Dr. Allen Esterly, PhD

Graduate Student, and Post-doctoral fellow

Current status: Post-doctoral Fellow, Yale University

Dr. Charles Hart, PhD

Graduate Student, and Post-doctoral fellow

Current status: Scientist, US Army

Dr. Dar Heinze MD, PhD

Graduate Student.

Current status: Research Fellow, Boston Medical Center

Dr. Rodrigo Santos, PhD

Post-doctoral fellow

Current status: Research Scientist, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 

Dr. Payal Maharaj, PhD

Post-doctoral fellow

Current status: Research Scientist, CDC

Jahnavi Bhaskar, MS

Research Associate

Current status: Research Scientist, UC Berkeley

Lane Warmbrod, MS

MS Student

Current status: Biosecurity and Biosafety analyst, Johns Hopkins University

Dr. Ian Patterson, PhD

Post-doctoral fellow

Current status: Assistant Professor, Queen's University, Canada

Nicole Hausser, MS

Research Associate

Current status: Research Associate, UTMB Galveston

Jing Huang, BS

Research Associate

Current status: Retired

Alicia Quattropani, BS

Research Associate

Current status: MPH student, London School of Tropical Medicine

Jordan Popov, BS

SURP Student

Current status: Columbia University

Bryce Linehan, BS

BS Student 

Current status: SUNY ESF

Kayleigh Filkins, BS

Research Associate

Current status: Graduate Student, University of Rochester

Erin Hassett, MS

Research Associate

Current status: Graduate Student, SUNY ESF

Thangamani Lab, SUNY Center for Vector-Borne Diseases, Upstate Medical University, Syracuse NY 13210