Kozbor Lab Members

Danuta Kozbor, PhD
I  joined the staff of the Department of Immunology at RPCI in 2002, as Associate Professor of Immunology and Microbiology. Previously I had completed a doctoral degree in Microbiology and Immunology at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada in 1982. I was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the National Cancer Institute of Canada at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, PA and worked as  Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA; Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Allegheny University and Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA; Visiting Professor at Kumamoto University, Japan; and Professor at the Center for Neurovirology and Cancer Biology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.

Malgorzata Gil, MSc, Research Affiliate
I joined Dr. Kozbor’s lab in August 2006 after completing my Master’s degree in Medical Biotechnology at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. I am currently working on therapeutic vaccine against metastatic neuroblastoma tumor. In particulary, we are designing strategies for enhancing the adjuvant potency of GD2 ganglioside mimetic vaccines by targeting the antigenic cassette to activating Fc gamma receptors on dendritic cells.

Andrzej Wierzbicki, PhD
Research Technologist
I joined Dr. Kozbor’s laboratory in Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA in 1996 to investigate the adjuvant effect of liposome-encapsulated b-glucan lentinen on vaccine-induced humoral and cellular immune responses to HIV envelope glycoprotein. After returning to Poland, I included the results of my studies in Philadelphia in my PhD thesis presented in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, K. Marcinkowski University School of Medical Sciences, Poznan in 2002. Shortly after, I returned to Dr. Kozbor’s laboratory at RPCI in Buffalo, NY. My research projects focus on identification of a cellular ligand for CD8+ T cells induced by GD2 mimotope vaccine and a role of CD133 antigen in the self-renewal capacity of neuronal stem cells in brain tumor.