Georgette D Kanmogne

Georgette D. Kanmogne is a Cameroonian American geneticist and molecular virologist and a full professor and vice chair for resource allocation and faculty development within the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neurosciences at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. Kanmogne's research program focuses on exploring the pathogenesis of neuroAIDS by deciphering the mechanisms underlying blood brain barrier dysfunction and viral entry into the central nervous system. Her research also addresses the lack of HIV therapies that cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) and has played a critical role in the development of nanoparticles encapsulating HIV-drugs that can cross the BBB to prevent viral-mediated neuron death in the brain. Kanmogne collaborates with clinical and basic researchers across America, Cameroon, and West Africa, spanning disciplines from hematology to psychiatry, to explore how viral genetic diversity is correlated with the neurological impact of HIV.

Early life and education Kanmogne was born and raised in Cameroon. She was one of six children in her family and was the first of all of them to attend high school or college. In her adolescent years, Kanmogne was an altar server and sang in the youth choir at her parish. For two years following her Master's, from 1990 to 1992, Kanmogne worked as a Laboratory Instructor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Yaoundé. Kanmogne used a novel genetic technique at the time, random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD), to characterize the genetic heterogeneity of T. brucei gambiense isolates from endemic areas in Africa. Her work was the first to show that the RAPD method is as accurate as the RFLP method at characterizing genetic variation, while also achieving a more detailed genetic analysis. She developed a novel PCR method that was highly sensitive and could be used to effectively diagnose sleeping sickness at levels of 25 trypanosomes/ml of blood. She began studying HIV during her postdoc, specifically exploring the CD4+ T-lymphocyte levels in patients with AIDS as well as the specific biology of human T-cell leukaemia virus type I infection in West African patients with AIDS.

In 1998, Kanmogne moved to the United States to pursue further postdoctoral training in the Department of Pathology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. She discovered that neither cell type expressed the known HIV receptors, CXCR4 and CCR5, and thus other cell types or mechanisms just mediate CNS-HIV infection. She found that NHP microglia express HIV-1 receptors and can be used to study HIV pathogenesis. She found that human lung microvascular endothelial cells are not a major reservoir of HIV in the lungs, but they do represent a target for the lethal effects of HIV viral proteins. In 2012, Kanmogne received tenure and in 2015, she was promoted to full professor within the department.

At the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Kanmogne is also the principal investigator of a lab that explores the mechanisms of HIV-1 brain invasion and the vascular biology of HIV infection. Her work has led to critical discoveries about the role of blood brain barrier (BBB) interactions with HIV as well as how these interactions influence the immune response in the brain leading to neuroAIDS, including neurodegeneration and AIDS associated dementia. Further, since Cameroon has some of the highest diversity of HIV strains and subtypes, her work exploring the genetic variants of HIV in relation to neurological symptoms will help to highlight potential disease trajectories associated with each subtype as well as open up possibilities for novel therapeutic development. They further showed that blocking gp120 or its associated receptors actually prevents monocyte migration and permeability of the BBB via the PKC pathway. To further delineate the mechanisms of HIV-infection leading to neuroinflammation, Kanmogne and her colleagues found that the CCR5 chemokine receptor mediated HIV-1 binding to HBMECs and that cross talk between STAT1 and PI3K pathways were mediating the BBB dysfunction after HIV infection.

Cognitive impairments due to HIV Kanmogne and her colleagues also hoped to explore the cognitive impairments due to HIV infection in Sub-Saharan Africa, so developed novel methods to do so. The team reported the first normative data for executive function and verbal fluency in Cameroonians and this established the ability to use this method for future assessments of cognitive function in patients with and without HIV infection. They found that the risk factors for HAND are similar to those described in other studies, underscoring the need to start to assess risk factors as a means of HANDS prevention in Cameroon. The first developed a nanoformulated crystalline antiretroviral therapy in 2012 which allows for drugs to be passed through the BBB through cell-to-cell contact between monocytes and HBMECs. They found that the therapy in mice led to decreased activation of glial cells and decreased viral load in the spleen. 2006 Nicolas Badami Fellowship Award for Excellence in HIV/AIDS Research 2005 American Lung Association Career Investigator Award 2003 Pfizer Atorvastatin Research Awards 2000 Oklahoma Center for Neuroscience Travel Award 1995 Travel Award - British Society of Parasitology 1995 Travel Grant - University of Bristol Alumni Foundation 1992-1996 World Health Organization (WHO) Research Training Grant