Jay W. Warrick, PhD

Research Title: Spatiotemporal Kinetics of Innate Immune Activation and Viral Protein Expression

Project Summary: During appointment to this training grant Jay Warrick was primarily involved in developing software and microscale tools for studying virus-host interactions in single cells. Since Jay was new to the field of virology he audited coursework and attended seminars and conferences in parallel with his research to familiarize himself with the field. His research involved the development of a microwell array platform and automated image analysis software for single-cell quantification of fluorescent protein expression dynamics, protein secretion, and single-cell nucleic acid analysis. These developments are part of a larger goal to develop a computational model of the molecular interactions that comprise a VSV infection as well as a better understanding of the nature of virus spread and evolution. He was also a major contributor to the development of the computational models of VSV, fluorescent quantification of plaque spread, and helped to create fluorescent VSV mutants for future studies. Cross-disciplinary research in prostate and breast cancer also stemmed from this work, utilizing the sub-nanoliter microwells developed for viruses to quantify single-cell secretion and DNA/RNA sequencing. These new approaches will open new doors for quantifying heterogeneity of virus-host interactions as well as tumor cells from patient samples for study of therapeutic resistance, a problem common to both virology and cancer biology.

Dr. Warrick completed his training and is now an Assistant Scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.