Jacob D. Estes Ph.D.

Director of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute

Dr. Estes graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.S. in Microbiology and Molecular Biology in 1999. He continued his graduate education at Brigham Young University and obtained his Ph.D. in Immunology and HIV Pathogenesis in 2003 in the laboratory of Dr. Gregory Burton. From 2003 to 2007, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Ashley Haase in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Minnesota focusing on the in-vivo immunopathology of lentiviral infections.

Following postdoctoral training, Dr. Estes joined the AIDS and Cancer Virus Program at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research and was a Principal Investigator of the Retroviral Immunopathology Section and Senior Principal Scientist and Head of the Tissue Analysis Core.

Dr. Estes was appointed an Adjunct Professor in the School of Health and Biomedical Sciences in the College of Science, Engineering and Health at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia in 2017. In 2017, Dr. Estes accepted a dual appointment as Professor within the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute (VGTI) and Chief of the Division of Pathobiology &Immunology in the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) at OHSU. Since Dec 2022, Dr. Estes has been the Director of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute (VGTI).

Kathleen Busman-Sahay, Ph.D.

Research Assistant Professor

Lisa Ann Bay, MD.

Program Administrator

Michael Nekorchuk, Ph.D.

Staff Scientist



Shashank Ganatra, MBBS

Staff Scientist



William Burgess, M.S.

Research Associate



Stephen Bondoc, HTL(ASCP)

Research Associate



Kateland Sipe

Research Data Analyst



Margaret Martin, HT(ASCP)

Senior Research Assistant



Beth Heninger

Research Assistant II



Nathaniel Freuler

Research Assistant II



Anderson Spencer

Research Assistant II



Anthony Tran

Research Assistant II



Michael Clark

Research Assistant II



Olivia Broadley

Research Assistant II



Sarah Peterson

Laboratory Assistant