Charles A Scanga, PhD

Research Interests

Dr. Scanga’s scientific career began in 1989 at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda, MD) where he studied lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, an arenavirus responsible for callitrichid hepatitis, a newly emerging and often fatal disease of new world primates (tamarins and marmosets). He also studied coronaviruses before they were so exciting and investigated the receptors that they use to infect host cells. In 2000, he received his Ph.D. in Molecular Virology and Microbiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. His thesis work focused on the immune response to latent M. tuberculosis (Mtb) infections and was directed by Dr. JoAnne Flynn. Dr. Scanga did a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD) in NIAID’s Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, headed by Dr. Alan Sher. There, he studied host immunity to T. gondii and Mtb and used HIV transgenic mice to elucidate the effect of Mtb on viral gene expression. He then joined the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation (Rockville, MD) where he was a Senior Scientist heading the Animal Studies group. Dr. Scanga joined University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 2008 and is currently a Research Associate Professor. He is a member of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics as well as the Center for Vaccine Research. 

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Immune Dynamics of HIV/Mtb Co-infection in Childhood

We use nonhuman primates to better understand how an HIV infection increases the susceptibility to TB. HIV/Mtb co-infections in children are a special focus of the Scanga lab. We model pediatric co-infection in NHPs and study children in Myanmar, where HIV and TB are major problems. 

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Safety and Efficacy of TB Vaccines in HIV+ Patients

In collaboration with the NIH Vaccine Research Center (VRC), the HI-IMPACT branch of the IMPAc-TB consortium, and many other collaborators, we are also investigating various TB vaccine regimens that are safe and effective in HIV+ subjects using multiple NHP infection models.

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Dr. Scanga also is project manager for the TB Research Group at Pitt. The group’s projects broadly span many areas of TB including anti-TB drugs, PET/CT imaging of TB, TB vaccines, and basic pathogenesis and host immunity. He also manages the BSL-3 PET/CT imaging facility, working with other researchers to use medical imaging to study infections such as influenza and COVID.