Scientific Leadership Committee

Dr. Diaz's research program focuses on the oral microbiome. Her laboratory uses clinical studies, genomics, computational biology and model systems to study the processes that lead to dysbiosis of the oral microbiome. The lab's goal is to understand community dynamics and develop tools to manipulate the microbiome thereby interfering with disease development. She is particularly interested in understanding the significance of the microbiome as a mediator of susceptibility to oral comorbidities of cancer treatment and as an essential trigger in periodontal disease. She also investigates the potential for the salivary microbiome to serve as a biomarker for oral and systemic conditions.

Terrence Forrester holds fellowships in the Royal College of Physicians of both London and Edinburgh and is a professor of experimental medicine at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus.

His research focuses on risks and impacts of obesity, metabolic programming of early life and the constraints of fetal growth, and understanding the economic implications of chronic diseases and their intervention. He spearheaded the formation of the Tropical Medical Research Institute, which unified four research units—the Tropical Metabolic Research Unit, the Sickle Cell Research Unit, the Epidemiology Research Unit at Mona, Jamaica, and the Chronic Disease Research Unit in Barbados—across three campuses of the University of the West Indies.

John Lindo also is a consultant parasitologist to the University Hospital of West Indies. Professor Lindo is co-chair of the SUNY-University of the West Indies Faculty Task Force for Health Research Development. His research has focused on the epidemiology of soil-transmitted helminths and emerging infectious diseases. This includes the epidemiology of strongyloides stercoralis infections and toxocariasis, the emergence of malaria and angiostrongylus cantonensis infections in Jamaica, epidemiology of free-living amoebae in Jamaica and opportunistic parasitic infections in persons living with HIV/AIDS.  

Charles Chiedza Maponga also holds a visiting faculty position with the UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. He travels frequently between UB and the University of Zimbabwe while coordinating the activities of an international collaborative program, the International Pharmacotherapy Education and Research Initiative. Professor Maponga is the University of Zimbabwe's principal investigator for the NIH Fogarty International Center HIV Research Training program. He works to implement a postgraduate and postdoctoral training initiative between the two universities with an emphasis on HIV clinical pharmacology.

Craig Hendrix is currently the Wellcome Professor and Director, Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He trained in infectious diseases and clinical pharmacology at Hopkins before a career in the US Air Force and at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Hendrix’s primary research focus is clinical pharmacology of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis. Among other research projects, he’s involved as Principal Investigator or Project Leader in a variety of early phase PrEP program project grants funded through the DAIDS Integrated Clinical/Preclinical HIV Topical Microbicide Program. He also serves as director of the pharmacology group for the MTN and HPTN.

Timothy Murphy is a SUNY distinguished professor and senior associate dean for Clinical and Translational Research in UB's Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. He oversees strategies to transform UB’s research programs into new or improved treatments for patients as well as assisting faculty and trainees at all levels with their research activities. He directs the school's Clinical and Translational Research Center, located on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus that includes a nine-bed clinical research center with support services for clinical research. He focuses on infectious diseases.

Paras Prasad also holds the Samuel P. Capen Chair at UB and is the executive director of the multidisciplinary Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics. He has published more than 700 scientific papers, co-edited six books and co-authored a monograph (with D.J. Williams) "Introduction to Nonlinear Optical Effects in Molecules and Polymers." Professor Prasad published "Introduction to Biophotonics," the first monograph in this field, which authoritatively defines the field, details its scope and identifies emerging opportunities. He also has published the monograph, "Nanophotonics" and "Introduction to Nanomedicine and Nanobioengineering."

Stanley Schwartz is working to develop unique therapies for treatment of metastatic prostate cancer and chronic viral infections involving the brain. The processes include  nanotechnology, as well as allergy and immunology, proteins, metalloenzymes and RNA.

Andrew Talal conducts clinical and translational research in viral hepatitis. He studies viral decay and the concentrations of drugs in the liver. He directs the Center for Clinical Care and Research in Liver Disease at UB’s Clinical and Translational Research Center. His lab has received multi-year funding for its research programs. It has developed techniques for animal and human liver sampling that enable sorting of liver cells in order to understand drug distribution in the liver during treatment. 

James Mohler earned his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia and completed residency training in Surgery and Urology at the University of Kentucky Medical Center and a research fellowship in Urologic Oncology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  Dr. Mohler is licensed by New York and North Carolina, a Diplomate of the National Board of Medical Examiners and the American Board of Urology, and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He was Chair of the Roswell Park Department of Urology for 14 years.  Dr. Mohler is Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines Panel for Prostate Cancer and Past-President of the Society for Basic Urologic Research (SBUR). He has received the Producers Award and the Rodger J. Winn Award from NCCN and a career achievement award from SBUR.

Dr. Anton graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1977 and received his MD from Case Western Reserve University in 1983. He did fellowship work at the Cholera Hospital, ICDDR, in Bangladesh in 1983 and a year fellowship in pathology in 1981 in Cleveland’s Institute of Pathology. He performed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Bringham and Women’s Hospital in Boston Massachusetts. Dr. Anton began in his work at UCLA in 1986 with a gastroenterology fellowship and has been on faculty since 1989.

Dr. Anton’s research focuses on the degree of mucosal inflammation and altered co-receptor expression associated with HIV infection and associated therapeutic interventions, the potential use of the mucosa as a route of HIV immunization with various HIV vaccine candidates as well as microbicides for HIV mucosal prevention, investigating the interaction of HSV and HIV in mucosal pathogenesis and efforts to clarify the role of compartments in HIV pathogenesis.