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Elisa Crisci

Asst Professor

CVM Main Building B336

Bio

Dr. Elisa Crisci studied Veterinary Medicine at the University of Bologna (Italy) and during the last years she joined the pathology department to participate in the immunopathology course. She became interested in virology and pigs during her final degree project when studying porcine circovirosis. After earning her DVM, she applied for a scholarship for an internship period at the Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal (CRESA), an animal health research institute in Barcelona, Spain.

While in Spain, Crisci earned her MSc and PhD in Veterinary Health and Medicine at CRESA, focusing her studies mainly on virus-like particles as vaccine vectors for animal viral diseases and animal host-virus interactions.

During her PhD, she worked with different porcine viruses including circovirus, influenza virus (FLU), porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) and classical swine fever. Additionally, thanks to CRESA she also acquired experience allowing her to work under high biosafety level conditions with Biolevel 3 zoonotic pathogens. Crisci also worked in applied virology with different companies, to develop the safety study for a viral vaccine (Fort Dodge), to set up experimental viral infection (HIPRA) and to study an immunomodulatory compound (Maymo) to improve porcine industry. During this period, she was working in contact with stakeholders and commercial industry trying to develop the research and the collaboration in porcine production. During her doctorate, Crisci performed several internships to gain skills in virology and immunology, in particular in Scotland, Belgium and Australia.

After completing her PhD, Crisci spent further time at CRESA using the pig as a large animal model for immune cell therapy performing in vivo dendritic cell tracking.
In February 2013, she moved to Sweden to work in human virology at the molecular virology division of Linköping University (LIU). There she investigated mainly the interaction between human viruses, innate immune cells and complement system as well as gained skills to analyze virus-host relationship at a more detailed level using new generation sequencing. At LIU, Crisci was involved in the academic environment and was able to gain experience in teaching and training DM and graduate students.
The experience at IKE department with various cutting edge genomics methodologies and knowledgeable human virologists and immunologists inspirited her to apply similar technology to veterinary science.
For that reason, in 2017, she moved back to her “first love” and joined INRA, the French public research institute dedicated to agricultural science in Jouy-en-Josas (Paris, France). There she again studied pig viruses, in particular PRRSV infection in lung innate immune cells.

Crisci joined the faculty at the College of Veterinary Medicine of North Carolina State University as an Assistant Professor in Virology. She defines herelf as a swine “viro-immunologist” and her research will address the virus-host interactions in porcine diseases with a focus on Influenza virus and PRRSV.

AFFILIATIONS

North Carolina Veterinary Medical Association (NCVMA) since 2019.

American Association of Veterinary Immunologists since 2019.

World Society of Virology (WSV) since 2019.

American Society of Virology (ASV) since 2018.

Conference of research workers in animal diseases (CRWAD) since 2018.

American Association of Immunologists (AAI) 2018, 2019.

North Carolina Veterinary Medical Board (NCVMB), Faculty Certificate number FC53725 since 2018.

Italian Veterinary board (FNOVI-OMV Gorizia) since 2015.

Swedish Veterinary board (Jordbruksverket) since 2015.

Swedish Society for Virology (SSV) since 2014.

Spanish Immunology Society (SEI) from 2006 till 2014.

CERTIFICATIONS

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) with European Mention on “Animal Health and Medicine”, in Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) (Spain), Veterinary Faculty.

Master of Science (MSc) with European Mention in “Veterinary and Alimentary Science Research” in Veterinary Faculty of Barcelona Autónoma University (UAB) (Spain).

Degree in Veterinary Medicine in the University of Bologna (Italy) (DVM). 110/110 et laude (Honours degree).

RESEARCH EMPHASIS

GLOBAL HEALTH, IMMUNOLOGY, INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Pig virology, immunology

Publications

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Grants

Date: 07/01/22 - 6/30/26
Amount: $1,000,000.00
Funding Agencies: US Dept. of Agriculture - National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA)

The high mutation rate of PRRSV represents a big challenge and raises two important questions for swine producers: Which PRRSV strain will hit my farm next? And which vaccine can best protect my herd against it? Currently no technology can adequately answer those questions. To overcome this issue, this project will combine two state-of-the-art technologies – PRRSV forecasting and heterologous vaccine efficacy prediction. These technologies will create the first proactive PRRSV mitigation system: Predict and Protect against PRRSV (PreProPRRSV). Thereby, for the first time, PRRSV outbreak mitigation will become proactive! We will establish the PreProPRRSV system in two objectives: Objective 1 will establish a PRRSV forecasting technology. This forecasting methodology uses computer-based prediction algorithms based on surveillance data relevant to predict PRRSV spread – both intrinsic (e.g. variation of pathogen strains) and extrinsic (e.g. landscape) variables, pig transporting and farm locations. This technology can precisely predict the spread of PRRSV strains. Objective 2 will establish a vaccine efficacy prediction system. This system consists of an immune biobank (cells + serum) from pigs, which received different PRRSV vaccinations. This biobank will enable us to determine within around two weeks which vaccine induces the strongest immune response to the approaching PRRSV strain. This interdisciplinary project combines computer-algorithm-based forecasting with translational immunology to enable precision animal management for PRRSV: It will determine the most effective vaccine BEFORE the emerging PRRSV strain arrives at a production site. The proactive PreProPRRSV outbreak mitigation system will drastically enhance animal health and production by decreasing the impact of PRRS.

Date: 11/20/20 - 10/30/22
Amount: $290,951.00
Funding Agencies: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Pregnant women and their infants are at increased risk of severe illness caused by influenza viruses. While immunization of pregnant women with an inactivated trivalent influenza vaccine (IIV) has been recommended by the U.S. and WHO for over fifteen years, vaccine coverage is suboptimal. Additionally, IIV immunogenicity is reduced in young children, and influenza immunization is not recommended for infants less than 6 months old, a time when neonates are at greatest risk of influenza-associated mortality. Therefore, new and improved influenza vaccine strategies are needed to protect these vulnerable populations. An easy-to-deliver maternal influenza vaccine that boosts passively transferred influenza-specific antibodies (Abs) would be an ideal strategy for protection of the mother-neonatal dyad against severe influenza infection. The primary objective of this proposal is to develop a swine animal model to investigate if VXA-A1.1 immunization in lactating mothers elicits HA-specific IgA-producing plasma cell trafficking to the mammary gland and secretion of neutralizing HA-specific sIgA Abs into milk. Our secondary objective is to determine if VXA-A1.1 immunization in lactating mothers results in HA-specific neutralizing Abs in maternal circulation and at mucosal sites including the nose and lung. Our overall hypothesis is that VXA1-A1.1 elicits maternal mucosal HA-specific Abs, that prevent influenza infection in the mother/neonatal dyad. Our hypotheses will be tested in the following aims: Aim 1: Determine whether mucosal administration of an influenza vaccine (VXA-A1.1) elicits influenza-specific neutralizing Abs in milk (swine) Aim 2: Assess the ability of an oral influenza vaccine (VXA-A1.1) given postpartum to prevent influenza disease in suckling neonates using a piglet challenge model If the animal studies show promising results, a supplement will be requested to perform Aim 3—a Phase I clinical trial to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of an oral adenovirus type 5-based influenza vaccine (VXA-A1.1) in breastfeeding women compared to an inactivated seasonal trivalent influenza vaccine (TIV).

Date: 08/01/19 - 6/30/22
Amount: $45,428.00
Funding Agencies: NC Pork Council

In the proposed project, we will study the immune response to PRRSV and the role of secondary infections in healthy and diseased pigs during a PRDC outbreak on a NC swine farm (Prestage Farms Inc.). We will determine which immune response protects against PRDC and secondary infections leading to severe disease.

Date: 06/13/19 - 5/31/22
Amount: $405,448.00
Funding Agencies: National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Globally annual influenza epidemics are estimated to result in about 3 to 5 million cases of severe illness. Between 291,000 and 646,000 people worldwide die from seasonal influenza-related respiratory illnesses each year by the most recent report. The advances in sequencing technologies have led to the discovery of numerous long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). While the specific functions of these lncRNAs are still largely unknown, this new discovery offers an opportunity to develop novel classes of influenza interventions that target relevant lncRNAs or their interactions with other molecules. Our meta-analysis identified several lncRNAs that are predicted to be highly relevant to influenza A virus infection and host responses. Here we will extend these analyses with systematic investigations to establish their functional roles in influenza infection experimentally and to discover candidate lncRNAs as targets for influenza intervention. This project includes two Specific Aims: (1) experimentally establish how these highly ranked cellular lncRNAs affect influenza infection, and (2) identify lncRNA regulatory networks involved in influenza infection. In Aim 1, we will determine how influenza replication is altered when the expression of individual lncRNAs is knocked down or activated in human epithelial cells. For selected lncRNAs that the perturbation of their expressions affects influenza replication most effectively, we will confirm their effects on influenza infection in primary epithelial cells. In Aim 2, we will investigate: a) whether these highly ranked lncRNAs are interferon-stimulated genes; b) whether they act in cis or trans; c) the impact of selected lncRNAs on host responses to influenza infection. In particular, we will conduct an unbiased dual gene activation and knockout library screen to reconstruct the underlying lncRNA regulatory networks and uncover directional dependencies in these networks. Together, these analyses will allow us to better understand the functions of lncRNAs and their role in influenza infection, and to identify specific lncRNAs as novel targets for influenza intervention.

Date: 12/10/19 - 6/30/21
Amount: $169,974.00
Funding Agencies: Elanco US Inc. (formerly Elanco Animal Health and Bayer Healthcare)

Several vaccines have been developed against the economically most disastrous pig virus: PRRSV – Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus. While these vaccines often induce protection against the same (homologous) or very similar strains, protection against more distant heterologous strains remains challenging. To demonstrate a wide applicability of the newly developed Elanco Prevacent PRRSV vaccine, we will determine its heterologous immunogenicity and efficacy against PRRSV strains from the four major type-2 PRRSV lineages 1, 5, 8, and 9. Knowing the breadth of the heterologous Prevacent protection including the immunological mechanisms of this protection will provide essential data to convince the vast majority of pig producers of the benefits of Prevacent. In addition, determining the heterologous immunogenicity in combination with vaccine efficacy can help to determine immune correlates of protection. These correlates can help to predict vaccine efficacy; and they have the strong potential to improve the design of future vaccine candidates.


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