Education, Training and Research

I grew up in Ottertail, MN and graduated from Perham High School. My education continued at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN where I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology and then I earned my Master of Science degree in Biology from Minnesota State University, Mankato. In November of 2018, I successfully defended my PhD thesis and am continuing research in Kevin Legge’s lab as a postdoctoral research scholar.

In the Legge lab, we study several aspects of the immune response to influenza A virus (IAV) infection and vaccination. One of our many objectives is to develop an efficacious IAV vaccine platform that provides protection against multiple strains of IAV. Currently, my work is focused on determining the efficacy of a biodegradable polyanhydride nanoparticle-based IAV vaccine (IAV-nanovax) to induce protective immune responses against IAV infections.

Publications

1. Zacharias, Z.R., Ross, K.A., Hornick, E.E., Goodman, J.T., Narasimhan, B., Waldschmidt, T.J., and Legge, K.L. Polyanhydride nanovaccine induces robust pulmonary B and T cell immunity and confers protection against homologous and heterologous influenza A virus infections. Front. Immunol., August 28, 2018.


2. Carlin, L.E., Hemann, E.A., Zacharias, Z.R., Heusel, J.W., and Legge, K.L. Natural killer cell recruitment to the lung during influenza a virus infection is dependent on CXCR3, CCR5, and virus exposure dose. Front. Immunol., April 11, 2018.


3. Hornick, E.E., Banoth, B., Janowski, A.M., Zacharias, Z.R., Jain, N., Wilson, M.E., Gibson-Corley, K., Legge, K.L., Bishop, G.A., Sutterwala, F.S., and Cassel, S.L. Nlrp12 mediates adverse neutrophil recruitment during influenza virus infection. J. Immunol., February 1, 2018.


4. Strother, R.K., Danahy, D.B., Kotov, D.I., Kucaba, T.A., Zacharias, Z.R., Griffith, T.S., Legge, K.L., and Badovinac, V.P. Polymicrobial sepsis diminishes dendritic cell numbers and function directly contributing to impaired primary CD8 T cell responses in vivo. J. Immunol., October 26, 2016.