Lab Members

Current lab members

Our research team consists of an interdisciplinary and collaborative group of scientists that advance our science by working hard and having fun along the the way to make original research findings that meaninfully advance knowledge in human retrovirology. We take pride in the diverse and inclusive research environment that drives and advances our research goals.

Principal Investigator

Louis M. Mansky, Ph.D.

Professor and Director

Dr. Mansky has been engaged in virology research for 40 years. His research on retroviruses began at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Wisconsin - Madison under the guidance of Dr. Howard M. Temin. Dr. Mansky is the founding director of the Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, which serves to unite and promote collaborative, interdisciplinary interactions among researchers to advance virus research. Dr. Mansky's advising statement for Ph.D. students can be found here. Email: mansky@umn.edu

Administrative Support

Kari Bowen

IMV Administrator

Kari provides a wide variety of administrative support to our research group on top of her administrative duties to the Institute for Molecular Virology as well as the Division of Basic Sciences. Email: kbowen@umn.edu

Postdoctoral Researchers

Heather Hanson, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Heather's research is directed at investigating human retrovirus-host cell interactions. She has been the driving force behind the Mansky lab's implementation of transcriptomic analysis for uncovering important new host cell proteins that play important roles in human retrovirus replication. Heather also leads the lab's studies of virus transmission at cell-cell contacts. As a Ph.D. student, Heather was the recipient of a 4-year NIH F31 fellowship. Email: hans4784@umn.edu

Isaac Angert, Ph.D.
Research Associate

Isaac has exceptionally strong expertise in both virology as well as quantitative fluorescence imaging. instrumentation. His research continues to create new insights into key aspects of the human retrovirus particle assembly pathway. In particular, he is focused on investigating the role of the actin cortex in acting as a physical barrier to human retrovirus assembly as well as the implementation of super-resolution cryogenic light and electron microscopy for investigating virus-host protein interactions at particle assembly sites. He has successfully competed for NIH T32 support as both a predoctoral as well as a postdoctoral fellow. Isaac is co-mentored by Dr. Joachim Mueller. Email: ange0079@umn.edu

Rayna Addabbo, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Felllow

Rayna's research is directed at the implementation of quantitative fluorescence microscopy approaches in order to investigate critical aspects in the of human retrovirus particle assembly pathway. During her time as a postdoctoral fellow, she was awarded fellowship support from the NIH TL1 program. Rayna is co-mentored by Dr. Joachim Mueller. Email: rayna@umn.edu

Graduate Students

Gloria Baxter
Ph.D. candidate

Gloria's research is directed at mining RNA transcriptome data to investigate human retrovirus-host cell interactions. Gloria actively collaborates with Heather Hanson on her research. Gloria was an undergraduate student at The College of St. Scholastica. She has competed and was awarded individual fellowship support from the NIH and the IMV Training Program to pursue her doctoral research. Email: baxte258@umn.edu

William Arndt
Ph.D. candidate

Bill is multifaceted having a wide array of technical and conceptual expertise in many aspects of the lab's ongoing research. His main passion lies in the analysis of human retrovirus particle morphology and maturation through the use of cyro-electron microscopy and tomography (cryo-EM/ET) in order to obtain high-resolution structural information regarding virus structure and function. Bill was an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota. He competed and was awarded fellowship support from the IMVTraining Program as well as an individual NIH F31 fellowship.. Bill is co-mentored by Dr. Wei Zhang. Email: arndt255@umn.edu

Elijah Wray
Ph.D. student

Elijah's research is directed at the implementation of quantitative fluorescence approaches towards the understanding of the pathways involved in the targeting of viral RNA and proteins to sites in cells where human retrovirus particle biogenesis occurs. Elijah was an undergraduate student at Montana State University and is co-mentored by Dr. Joachim Mueller. Email: wray0036@umn.edu

Nora Willkomm
Ph.D. candidate

Nora has investigated human retrovirus host-cell interactions and utilized proteomics analysis in order to identify novel cellular proteins that are involved in human retrovirus replication. Nora was an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin. Nora collaborates with Heather Hanson and with Shuyu Meng. Nora is a dual degree student (DDS-PhD) and as part of her career development succeeded in competing and being awarded a NIH F30 fellowship. Email: willk035@umn.edu

Shuyu Meng
Ph.D. candidate

Shuyu is investigating the structure and function of the human retroviral matrix domain and its role in virus-membrane and virus-host cell protein interactions. Her particular focus is on the structure and function of the human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) matrix domain. Shuyu was an undergraduate student at Colorado State University. She collaborates with Isaac Angert on her research along with the lab of Dr. Jamil Saad at the University of Alabama - Birmingham. She is also actively collaborating Nora Wilkomm on the proteomics analysis of human retroviruses. Email: meng0137@umn.edu

Dalton Piotter
Ph.D. student

Dalton is investigating human retrovirus morphology and maturation as well as investigating the molecular basis of drug susceptibility of drug maturation inhibitors and capsid assembly inhibitors. He collaborates with Bill Arndt and is co-mentored by Dr. Wei Zhang.. Dalton was an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota.

Email: piott016@umn.edu

Luoan Xu

M.S. student

Luoan is investigating the structure of the immature HIV Gag lattice by using image reconstruction methods from cryoEM data. In particular, he is focused on studies with HIV-2. He was an undergraduate student at Purdue University. Luoan is jointly mentored by Drs. Wei Zhang and Louis Mansky. Email: xuxx1146@umn.edu

Jiaxin Wei
M.S. student

Jiaxin is engaged in a structure-function analysis of human retroviral capsid proteins in collaboration with Huixin Yang. Jiaxin was an undergraduate student at the China Pharmaceutical University. Email: wei00302@umn.edu

Olivia Tregilgas
M.S. student

Olivia is contributing to studies involving comparative analysis of retrovirus particle assembly using a variety of techniques ranging from 2-photon z-scan imaging to immunoblot analysis. Olivia collaborates with Gloria Baxter. She was an undergraduate student at Minnesota State University - Mankato. Email: tregi014@umn.edu

Undergraduate students

Madeline Damkot

Madeline collaborates with Heather Hanson and Rayna Addabbo on the study of human retrovirus-host cell interactions. She started in the 4+1 Environmental Health MPH program in the Fall 2024. Email: damko002@umn.edu

Elsa Higbie

Elsa collaborates with Heather Hanson and Gloria Baxter on investigating human retrovirus-host cell interactions. She has participated in the MnCORE Program and LSSURP in 2023. Email: higbi003@umn.edu