lan Michelow, MD

• Attending Physician, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Hasbro Children's Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital
• Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

Ian Michelow, MD is a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at Hasbro Children's Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital, and an associate professor of pediatrics at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Since 1998, Michelow has conducted clinical and laboratory-based research in the fields of pediatrics, infectious diseases and immunology. His clinical studies have defined diagnostic criteria for congenital neurosyphilis that form the basis of Centers for Disease Control guidelines, epidemiology of childhood pneumonia in hospital settings, antimicrobial utilization in neonatal ICUs, and the role of respiratory viruses in suspected neonatal sepsis. More recently, Michelow led a National Institutes of Health funded study on viral pathogenesis of Ebola virus and other emerging infectious diseases. He demonstrated therapeutic applications of novel chimeric human lectins in animal models of infection and discovered a phenomenon of enhanced viral uptake mediated by circulating human mannose-binding lectin.

Michelow is currently based at the Center for International Health Research where he is studying novel falciparum malaria vaccine candidates to protect mothers and their children. Using a creative strategy devised by Jonathan Kurtis, MD, PhD, Michelow screened virtually the entire malaria genome using malaria DNA phage display libraries and serum from a carefully studied Tanzanian birth cohort. He has identified ten new malaria antigens uniquely recognized by antibodies in the sera of African women, whose children were protected against severe malaria; he and his team are currently characterizing these proteins. He is also collaborating with scientists at the University of Rhode Island to develop a different malaria vaccine candidate discovered by Kurtis. The types of techniques involved with his research include protein production and purification using chromatography, infection and binding inhibition assays, production of murine polyclonal antibodies, mouse challenge models, multiplex immunoassays and high resolution imaging.

Michelow is the recipient of multiple foundation awards, an NIH/NIAID KOB award under the mentorship of Kurtis and Jennifer Friedman, MD, PhD, MPH titled "Vaccine Development for Falciparum Malaria in Pregnant Women and Their Offspring" and is the principal investigator of a project titled "Development of a Novel Vaccine Candidate for Pediatric Falciparum Malaria" under an NIH/NIGMS Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant titled "Immune-Based Interventions Against Infectious Diseases" (PI, Alan Rothman, University of Rhode Island).

Learn more about Ian Michelow, MD, and view his publications (brown.edu)