Ricardo Carrion PhD
Professor and Program Co-lead | Disease Intervention & Prevention, Texas Biomed
Dr. Carrion’s research program aims to develop and characterize animal models for BSL-4 hemorrhagic fever viruses. He was the first to show that the common marmoset faithfully mimics human ebolavirus disease, Marburgvirus disease and Lassa Fever thus providing a novel small NHP model for evaluating countermeasures to these diseases. Most recently his team’s focus is on developing well characterized animal models for conducting filovirus efficacy studies in nonhuman primates. Several filovirus vaccine platforms that are currently in human trials were tested by Dr. Carrion’s group using cynomolgus and rhesus ebolavirus macaque models.
Dr. Carrion is currently serves on committees dedicated to SARS-CoV-2 research including: Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions & Vaccines (ACTIV) Coronavirus Vaccine & Therapy Evaluation Network (CoVTen) sub-committees, WHO Ad hoc Expert Group on preclinical models of COVID-19 disease, National Primate Research Center (NPRC) Coronavirus Vaccine & Therapy Evaluation Network (CoVTen) operations, and National Primate Research Center (NPRC) coronavirus working group.