Blake Vincenzo Vilchez

Hello, my name is Blake Vilchez. I was born in Lima, Peru and moved to Texas in 2004. While growing up, I began to develop an interest in infectious disease after reading about Dr. John Snow and the cholera epidemic in London in a kids’ science magazine. This interest stayed with me and led me to attend New Mexico State University where I graduated with a B.S. in Microbiology in December 2018. In my undergrad at New Mexico State University, I joined Dr. Geoffrey Smith’s lab where I worked on developing a technique for sterilizing the surface of ancient halite crystals. The long-term goal of the experiment was to study equally ancient halobacterium in liquid inclusion within the crystals. We did not want to damage any bacteria within the crystal but needed to ensure that modern bacteria dwelling on the surface would not contaminate our sample. By being able to look at ancient bacteria we would be able to learn more about how they have evolved over time. I was also able to learn much more about viruses and bacteria through passionate professors and focus my interest to zoonotic viruses. As my research experience drew to a close, I knew that I wanted to focus on infectious disease, and I wanted to acquire research experience on the field before applying to a graduate program. On my search for research opportunities, I came across the PREP@UGA program funded by the NIH. This post-baccalaureate research program at the University of Georgia, allowed me to come in contact with investigators working with infectious diseases of zoonotic potential and I joined the Rajão/Perez Lab located at the Poultry Diagnostic and Research Center (PDRC). The lab focuses on avian, human and swine influenza research and is led by Dr. Daniel Perez and Dr. Daniela Rajão.

During my time at the lab, I have been working under the direction of Dr. Stivalis Cardenas Garcia, the Assistant Research Scientist at the lab. During the first months, I was trained on basic laboratory techniques related to infectious diseases and molecular biology. Later on, my mentor assigned me the task of developing a live attenuated avian influenza virus of H7N3 subtype for its potential use as a vaccine against highly pathogenic avian influenza H7N3 in poultry. The main goal of this project is to generate a live attenuated vaccine with impaired ability to replicate in the lower respiratory tract of birds and with impaired reassortment potential. My job here has been to generate a plasmid containing temperature sensitive mutations adopted from other viruses developed at the lab, virus rescue and stock preparation. I am currently rescuing two more viruses with the same features but expressing H7-Hemagglutinin and N3-Neuraminidase of different origin. In the upcoming months I will conduct in vitro characterization to test their suitability to move to in vivo studies. Through this project I have learned several molecular virology techniques such as molecular cloning, enzymatic digestion, dephosphorylation, DNA purification, transformation, PCR, virus propagation in eggs and cell culture, hemagglutination assays, titration of virus stocks in cells and eggs, maintenance of cell lines, and necropsies.

My goal is to enter a PhD program that will allow me to focus on the study of zoonotic viruses and their mechanisms of adaptation to the human population and interspecies transmission. With this I hope to contribute to the understanding about the emergence of diseases causing epidemic or pandemic episodes around the world. Later on, I would like to pursue a carrier in biosecurity working for the federal government using my skills and knowledge to aid in disease prevention and control.