Chief, Immunobiology and Molecular Virology Section
Education:
Dr. rer. Nat. (Ph.D.), Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
Diplom (M.Sc.), Freidrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
Vordiplom (B.Sc.), Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
Biography
Dr. Marzi received her Ph.D. in virology from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, where she studied the glycoprotein-mediated entry of Ebola virus (EBOV) and HIV. After a short postdoc in Winnipeg, Canada, at the National Microbiology Laboratory-Public Health Agency of Canada, Dr. Marzi moved to the NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, MT. There, she continued her BSL-4 work on vaccine development for filoviruses using primarily the vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) platform. She conducted several significant preclinical studies for the now-approved VSV-EBOV vaccine.
The German Society of Virology recognized Dr. Marzi with the prestigious Löffler-Frosch Preis (Award) for her research on filoviruses and vaccine development in 2019. That same year, Dr. Marzi was selected as a tenure-track investigator in the NIAID Laboratory of Virology and as an NIH Distinguished Scholar. In 2023, she received tenure and is now a senior investigator in the Laboratory of Virology. Her research continues to focus on filovirus pathogenesis and animal model development, on filovirus-host interactions, as well as countermeasure development and preclinical testing for these pathogens. In response to emerging infectious disease outbreaks, her group has expanded the use of the VSV vaccine platform to other pathogens such as the influenza virus, Zika virus, and SARS-CoV-2.