About

Patricia A. Fitzgerald-Bocarsly, PHD, MA, is a professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in the Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine, where she serves as Vice Chair for Basic Science and Scientific Director of the Flow Cytometry and Immunology Core Laboratory. She received her undergraduate degree from UCLA, her PhD from Boston University, and completed her post-doctoral training at the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. Her research focuses on the human innate immune response to viral infections, particularly involving plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC). Her lab was among the first to describe these cells and their dysregulation in the context of HIV infection. Her current research investigates the signaling pathways that lead to the production of type I and type III interferons in human pDCs, how these cells differ across various anatomical locations, and how they change with aging and HIV infection. Additionally, her work explores the immunometabolism of these cells in different immune compartments and disease states. Her laboratory studies both the basic and clinical biology of pDCs, including their phenotype, tissue distribution, mechanisms of activation, and interactions with other cell types, as well as their role and regulation in infectious diseases and cancer.

Research topics

• Virology
• Medicine
• Immunology
• Biology
• Computational biology
• Pathology
• Internal medicine

Selected publications

• Highly versatile antibody binding assay for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection

  medRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2021 · 4 citations

  • Virology
  • Immunology
  • Medicine

  Monitoring the burden and spread of infection with the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, whether within small communities or in large geographical settings, is of paramount importance for public health purposes. Serology, which detects the host antibody response to the infection, is the most appropriate tool for this task, since virus-derived markers are most reliably detected during the acute phase of infection. Here we show that our ELISA protocol, which is based on antibody binding to the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of the S1 subunit of the viral Spike protein expressed as a novel fusion protein, detects antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination. We also show that our ELISA is accurate and versatile. It compares favorably with commercial assays widely used in clinical practice to determine exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, our protocol accommodates use of various blood- and non-blood-derived biospecimens, such as breast milk, as well as dried blood obtained with microsampling cartridges that are appropriate for remote collection. As a result, our RBD-based ELISA protocols are well suited for seroepidemiology and other large-scale studies requiring parsimonious sample collection outside of healthcare settings.

  DOI

• Highly versatile antibody binding assay for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination

  Journal of Immunological Methods · 2021 · 12 citations

  • Virology
  • Immunology
  • Medicine
  DOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01CA042093

  NIH · $702k · 1991

• Contribution of plasmacytoid DCs to immune senescence in HIV infection

  NIH · $1.6M · 2014–2019

• Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells in HIV pathogenesis

  NIH · $7.3M · 1991–2016

Frequent coauthors

• Sukhwinder Singh

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  13 shared

• Jihong Dai

  Hunan Agricultural University

  8 shared

• Mary O. Carayannopoulos

  Johnson University

  6 shared

• Charles Reichman

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  6 shared

• Samuel Maldonado

  University of Virginia

  6 shared

• Pratik Datta

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  6 shared

• Deborah Handler

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  6 shared

• Pankaj Kumar Mishra

  6 shared

Education

• B.S.

  University of California at Los Angeles

  1976

• M.A.

  University of California at Davis

  1977

• Ph.D.

  Boston University

  1980

Similar researchers at Rutgers University

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• Stephen Burleyh-145
• Paul Falkowskih-145
• Joseph DeLucah-119
• Julius Gardinh-117