About Our Lab

Research Interests: HIV science from a cell biology approach, supplemented with molecular biology, biochemistry, and genetics to study various aspects of HIV from virus entry and assembly, to defining the earliest steps of the sexual transmission of HIV; microscopic imaging; fluorescent labeling of HIV particles or viral proteins and the identification of infected cells; HIV prevention science, including vaccine and microbicide research.

Thomas J. Hope, PH.D. is a Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Feinberg School of Medicine and in Biomedical Engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Northwestern University.  Dr. Hope’s laboratory has been a pioneer the use of cell biology approaches to study HIV providing images and movies of HIV interacting with cells and tissues.  For the past 25 years, his research has focused on HIV Cellular Virology.  More recently, this focus has expanded to HIV related mucosal immunology, HIV transmission, and HIV Prevention Science.

The Hope Laboratory utilizes a series of imaging based tools to define key viral and host players of the earliest days of the transmission event in the physiologically relevant context of anatomy and physiology of live animals and human tissues. We use several approaches to allow the efficient identification of foci of SIV mucosal infection. HIV/SIV particles, mucosal tissue barriers, host target or effector cells, and infected cells can be directly visualized. We can leverage these imaging capabilities to do in vivo PK/PD studies utilizing systemic and topical PrEP approaches. Together, these approaches provide unique insights into the space and time of the earliest events of HIV transmission and prevention to inform the development of approaches to stem the AIDS pandemic that continues around the world. 

• Research
  Find details about our current work
• Lab Members
  Meet our team members
• Publications
  Find recent publications from our lab
• About Us
  Connect with our lab

Recent Publications

• Hope TJ  Inflammation weakens HIV prevention.  Nat Med  2018 Apr 10;24(4):384-385. doi:10.1038/nm.4534
• Wills S, Hwang KK, Liu P, Dennison SM, Tay MZ, Shen X, Pollara J, Lucas JT, Parks R, Rerks-Ngarm S, Pitisuttithum P, Nitayapan S, Kaewkungwal J, Thomas R, Kim JH, Michael NL, Robb ML, McRaven M, Montefiori DC, Hope TJ, Liao HX, Moody MA, Ferrari G, Haynes BF, Alam SM, Bonsignori M, Tomaras GD  HIV-1-Specific IgA Monoclonal Antibodies from an HIV-1 Vaccinee Mediate Galactosylceramide Blocking and Phagocytosis.  J Virol  2018 04 01;92(7). pii:e01552-17

View More Publications