T-cell immunity monitoring and assay development: an interview with Steven Kleiboeker
In this podcast, Steven Kleiboeker (Vice-President of Research and Development at Viracor Eurofins BioPharma Services, Kansas City, MO, USA) discusses the methods for – and challenges involved with – T-cell immunity monitoring and assay development. He also discusses the current research focuses at Viracor Eurofins laboratories, the importance of other viral assays and his hopes for the future directions of T-cell immunity assays.
Dr Steven Kleiboeker
As Vice-President of Research and Development at Viracor Eurofins BioPharma Services, Steven provides scientific leadership, direction and oversight to the research and development team supporting the clinical reference laboratory and pharma testing groups, as well as research and development projects for future clinical assays. Dr Kleiboeker is certified in molecular diagnostics as a high complexity laboratory director and technical specialist by the American Board of Bioanalysis. Over his career, Dr Kleiboeker’s research has focused on viral pathogenesis and diagnostics, fungal diagnostics, phylogenetics and immunology. His work has included projects on a broad range of human and animal pathogens. He has published over 65 refereed scientific articles and three book chapters. Dr Kleiboeker has served as principal and co-investigator on research grants that were funded by governmental agencies, commodity groups and private entities. Prior to joining Viracor Eurofins in 2006, he was a faculty member at the University of Missouri (MO, USA) where his duties included research, teaching of graduate and professional students and supervision of diagnostic service laboratories (virology, serology and molecular diagnostics).
Questions
1 Could you please begin by introducing yourself and your work? [Time – 00:30]
2 How do measurements of T-cell immunity aid researchers and clinicians? [Time – 00:55]
3 What are the challenges to method development? [Time – 01:50]
4 How do you interpret results from T-cell immunity assays? [Time – 03:15]
5 Do other viral assays, such as qPCR, become obsolete with T-cell immunity assays? [Time – 04:27]
6 What types of newer immunotherapies, cell- or gene-based, will need to make use of T-cell immunity assays as part of safety/efficacy testing during development? [Time – 05:13]
7 What do you think are the future directions for T-cell immunity assays? [Time – 06:27]
