Vet Med Welcomes New Faculty
The Department of Veterinary Medicine introduces two new faculty members for the Summer of 2022
As we start the summer of 2022, we are excited to welcome two new faculty members to our Department. The Department of Veterinary Medicine and the Maryland campus of the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine are proud to introduce two new faculty members who are ready to advance our core missions of research, teaching, and Extension. They each bring expertise in their chosen field of training and represent our research area: Antimicrobial Resistance, Influenza, and Avian Influenza. We are pleased to showcase the new members of our department.
Dr. Seth Dickey, Assistant Professor of Microbiology
Seth Dickey is a new Assistant Professor in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Maryland and the Maryland campus of the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. His research interests include 1) defining the biosynthesis and mechanism of action of a novel class of antimicrobial peptides to capitalize on their potential for therapeutic use and 2) developing advanced genetic techniques to uncover new bacterial targets as candidates for drug discovery. Dr. Dickey earned his Ph.D. in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he established a novel membrane-based assay and elucidated the atypical biochemical properties within a family of bacterial membrane proteases. In his post-doctoral work at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Dickey was awarded a Postdoctoral Research Associate Training fellowship and turned his attention to characterizing peptide transport systems that are important for virulence in the antibiotic-resistant pathogen methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Also, during his time at the NIH, Dr. Dickey taught and directed graduate-level biochemistry courses at the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences. As a new Assistant Professor, Dr. Dickey plans to develop a course on the mechanisms of antimicrobials and antimicrobial resistance.
Dr. Jaekeun Park, Assistant Professor of Virology
Dr. Jaekeun Park is appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Maryland and the Maryland campus of the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. He obtained his D.V.M. degree (2010) and Ph.D. in Veterinary Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (2014) from Konkuk Univerisity, Seoul, South Korea. During the Ph.D. training, under the supervision of Dr. Chang-Seon Song, he worked on surveillance of avian influenza viruses in wild birds and vaccine development against avian influenza and Newcastle disease using virus-like particle (VLP) platforms. Between 2015 and 2022, during his post-doctoral research at the National Institutes of Health, under the mentorship of Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, he focused on defining the correlates of human influenza protection, viral escape from host immunity, and developing universal influenza vaccine candidates.
His research interests span different aspects of influenza viruses and immune responses against influenza virus infection. In particular, he will focus on 1) defining molecular signatures of protective or pathological lung resident memory T (TRM) cells, 2) identifying strategies for robust generation and maintenance of protective lung TRM cells, and 3) advancing current influenza animal models to reliably support influenza research on viral pathogenesis and vaccines. Findings from the above research areas are likely to provide key insights concerning the protective or pathological mucosal immune responses to influenza viruses and help identify effective therapeutic and vaccine interventions against influenza and potentially other zoonotic respiratory viruses. He also plans to actively seek opportunities to collaborate with other scientists with various interests in infectious diseases and immunology within the University of Maryland and the VA-MD College of Veterinary Medicine
