Dr. Kailasan is a structural virologist and immunologist.

She oversees discovery and pre-clinical research projects that encompass structure-based design, protein production, assay development, and in vitro & in vivo characterization of vaccine and novel antibody therapeutic candidates for infectious disease targets.

She received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences in the lab of renowned structural virologist & biochemist, Dr. Mavis Agbandje-McKenna, from University of Florida in 2015.

Dr. Kailasan used a combination of X-ray crystallography and high-resolution cryo-EM to solve 3D structures of several viral capsid and capsid-antibody complexes of infectious ssDNA viruses (Human bocavirus1-4, Bovine parvovirus, Gorilla bocavirus and Human parvovirus 4) that cause respiratory and gastrointestinal infections.

Using molecular biology to complement her structural observations, she worked toward elucidating mechanisms of host pathogen interactions such as receptor binding and antigenicity.

She has also contributed to projects focused on novel gene therapy vector design and bacteriophage structures. During her post-doc training at the National Institute of Health, she worked on the structure of a CRISPR-Cas like enzyme to reveal a unique mechanism of DNA target site insertion.

At IBT, as a Principal Investigator (SBIR-funded program) and/or Scientific Lead, she has been working on several vaccine and/or monoclonal antibody development projects related to Ebola virus, Marburg virus, Nipah virus and Multi-drug Resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections.