Today, infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, SARS,West Nile virus, and avian and swine influenza present some of the greatest threats to human health. As the global population continues to swell and people travel more among nations, the threat spreads farther. “Viruses are amazing,” says Kylene Kehn-Hall, a College of Science (COS) infectious diseases researcher working at the new Biomedical Research Laboratory (BRL) on the Prince William Campus. When we catch a virus, that “virus encodes very few proteins, but it has the power to take over our bodies. My job is to figure out how this happens.”

Kehn-Hall came to Mason eighteen months ago and is excited to be part of this state-of-theart research campus. The new facility will ultimately employ about fifty staff members and researchers, as well as a large number of student researchers. The BRL is administered by the COS National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases (NCBID), whose mission is to address the ongoing challenges to national and international security posed by the threats of bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases.

She says, “Coming to this lab was a perfect fit for me. I did my postdoc work at the FBI Counterterrorism and Forensic Science Research Laboratory.” One of her areas of interest is HIV/AIDS. Kehn-Hall, in collaboration with Donald Poretz, one of the founders of the Clinical Alliance for Research and Education of Infectious Diseases, is working on a two-year grant to study a special HIV/AIDS population. She explains that there is a small group of patients who are HIV positive but who have never developed AIDS, termed “Long-Term Nonprogressors.” Their bodies have a natural ability to fight the virus.

Kehn-Hall adds that her work benefits from the efforts of Lance Liotta and Emanuel Petricoin, scientists in the COS Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM). “We have access to their technology and insights, and we are looking at this population’s microRNA. I’m personally driven by the questions: What is unique about these people, and what can we learn?”

Kehn-Hall brings this curiosity to her students. She teaches a class on emerging infectious diseases. “I really enjoy working with students, and they are always in the lab with me,” she says.

Kehn-Hall is a positive role model to women in science, as well. She says that she came to science late. “I entered Virginia Commonwealth University undecided about what I wanted to study. I became fascinated by biology.” She laughs a bit as she describes one female professor who taught cell biology. “I was really struggling in her class, and she actually discouraged me from continuing on in biology. I didn’t listen to her and obviously got through it.”

She continued on to George Washington University where she earned her master’s and doctoral degrees. She says that there are a lot of women working in biological sciences, and it’s a trend she’d like to see continue.

In addition to HIV/AIDS research, she is also working on Rift Valley Fever Virus (RVFV), an emerging infectious disease that affects both livestock and humans, mainly on the African continent. Kehn-Hall is collaborating with Ceres Nanosciences, a biotechnology company founded on discoveries from CAPMM labs, on a project recently funded by the National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense (FAZD) utilizing the Ceres NanotrapTM technology to improve diagnostic assays for RVFV.

She admits she likes being part of a brand-new lab and having input on NCBID’s research agenda and future direction. Kehn-Hall recognizes the value of her work and of this new facility, and hopes the cutting-edge research leads to potential therapies and cures.