Program overview
Neil Christensen, PhD, presents the Fall 2023 Penn State College of Medicine Dean's Lecture.
Credit
CME credit is available for those who attended live.
Penn State College of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Penn State College of Medicine designates this live activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™.
Learning objectives
- Identify the role of preclinical models to study oncogenic viruses.
- Understand basic principles of papillomaviruses biology.
- Describe vaccines and therapeutics for papillomaviruses.
Neil Christensen, PhD
Professor of Pathology and Microbiology and Immunology
Director, Gittlen Laboratories for Cancer Research
Director, Antibody Core
Penn State College of Medicine
Dr. Christensen has more than 30 years research experience in the fields of immunology and microbiology. The current focus of his research is preclinical models to study oncogenic viruses and stems from training in the fields of immunology and virology with emphasis on animal models of papillomavirus and Epstein Barr Virus infections and a desire to understand how the immune system combats persistent infections and cancers. A second major component of his research involves the construction of a large and diverse set of monoclonal antibodies to various viral and host proteins with particular strength in probes that recognize Human Papillomaviruses and other viral capsids that have virus neutralizing activities.
He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals and received an American Social Health Association Fellowship in 1988. In 2018 he received a Faculty Scholar Award, Entrepreneurial activities, from Penn State. Prof. Christensen received his bachelor’s and master’s of science degrees in zoology from Auckland University, N.Z. in 1976 and 1978 respectively, and a PhD degree in cell biology from Auckland University, N.Z. in 1984. He completed post-doctoral studies at Penn State College of Medicine, from 1984-1988 and obtained a faculty position as an assistant professor in 1992.