Chapman University’s Vice President for Research, Thomas Piechota, hosts the next Ask the Experts – COVID-19 Research Town Hall on Tuesday, February 9, noon – 1 PM. The event will feature Chapman faculty experts Jeff Goad, PharmD., MPH (School of Pharmacy), Jennifer Totonchy Ph.D. (School of Pharmacy), Hagop Atamian Ph.D. (Schmid College of Science and Technology) and Gennady Verkhivker, Ph.D (Schmid College of Science and Technology). Experts will discuss COVID-19 topics including the latest vaccines and COVID-19 variants.

The entire Chapman community (staff, faculty, and students) and the broader community are invited to join. This will be interactive with Q&A moderated by Tom Piechota.

Click here to join the Live Teams event. Visit www.chapman.edu/asktheexperts for more information or to watch previous Ask the Experts Town Halls.

Faculty Expert Biographies:

Jeff Goad, PharmD., MPH., is a Professor and Chair in Department of Pharmacy Practice at the School of Pharmacy. Dr. Goad runs the Travel Clinic at the Student Health Center and his research program focuses on the social and behavioral aspects of consumer and healthcare professional’s decision-making process and outcomes related primarily to immunizations and travel medicine. Dr. Goad will be presenting an update on COVID vaccines and the state vaccine distribution plan.

Jennifer Totonchy, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapeutics at the School of Pharmacy. She teaches immunology and vaccine formulation in the Doctor of Pharmacy program. She is an accomplished viral immunologist and has worked on host-virus interactions for both DNA and RNA viruses. Her laboratory is currently focused on infection of human B cells with Kaposi Sarcoma Herpesvirus.

Hagop Atamian, Ph.D.,  is Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at Chapman University. He has expertise in molecular biology and genomics. Broadly, his research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying plant adaptation to the environment. This includes how pathogens cause diseases in plants and how to minimize crop losses from these diseases. He will present the latest information regarding the new SARS-CoV-2 strains emerging in different parts of the world.

Gennady M. Verkhivker, Ph.D.,  is Professor of Computational Biosciences at Schmid College of Science & Technology and Professor at the Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Chapman University School of Pharmacy.  His expertise is in computational and structural biology, bioinformatics and systems medicine. His research focuses on multidisciplinary computational and experimental studies to dissect molecular mechanisms of therapeutically important proteins in cancer and virology and develop tools for drug discovery and translational research. He will discuss the latest developments in understanding mechanisms and strategies to combat the emerging SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein mutations capable of escaping antibodies for the treatment of COVID-19.