Dr. Ishmael Aziati joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases as an Instructor in November 2024. He has been involved in collaborative research for the past decade studying emerging and reemerging infectious viral diseases. After graduating with a BSc. (Hons) in Biochemistry in 2010 from the University of Ghana. He joined the WHO Ghana Regional Reference Laboratory at the Noguchi Memorial Institute, where he contributed to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative by performing virus isolation, molecular characterization of wildtype and vaccine derived polio, and non-polio enteroviruses.
In the meantime, he was also part of the Ghana – US Navy Medical Research Unit (NAMRU-3) team that first showed the presence of Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus in ticks collected from Ghanaian livestock. These experiences made him the focal person during the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in 2014 where he coordinated the testing and confirmation of suspected EVD from Ghana, Togo, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire. In 2019, Dr. Aziati graduated with PhD in Medical Science from the Tokyo Medical and Dental University where he used expression cloning with a cDNA expression library and isolated a C-terminally truncated form of a host protein that markedly inhibited HIV-1 replication and infection and validated the dependency of HIV-1 on the full length of this cellular protein.
In the same year, he joined the research group of Dr. Jacco Boon at WashU School of Medicine as a postdoctoral research associate studying the surveillance, epidemiology and host cellular requirements for the replication of tick-borne viruses. He recently showed the presence of Bourbon and Heartland viruses in ticks collected from the St. Louis metro area and he is now using proximity labeling proteomics to uncover protein – protein interactions in virus – host systems essential for Bourbon virus replication in host cells. His long-term goal is to prevent and control vector-borne viral infectious by defining occupational risk of exposure to these infectious in high-risk populations and using proteomic and molecular approaches to uncover virus – host interactions for tick- and mosquito borne viruses.
His key interests are Virology, emerging Infectious Diseases and One health. His research areas are Identifying and understanding pathogen-host interactions for vector-borne diseases using state of the art proteomic and molecular tools. One health approach to prevention and control of emerging vector-borne and zoonotic viruses by pathogen surveillance and defining the occupational risk of exposure to these infections in high-risk populations.