Jay Chaudhari

Jay earned his Bachelor’s degree in Veterinary Medicine from the College of Veterinary Science at Dantiwada Agricultural University in 2014. Following that, Jay completed his Master’s degree in Veterinary Immunology at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) in 2016. His Master’s thesis was dedicated to designing a vaccine formulation for the Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) virus, with a focus on eliciting protective B and T cell responses while enhancing the longevity of these immune responses. From 2016 to 2018, Jay served as a veterinary officer for the Gujarat Animal Husbandry Department. In the fall of 2018, he joined the Integrative Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, under the guidance of Dr. Hiep Vu. Jay’s Ph.D. research centered on unraveling the mechanisms underlying host-pathogen interactions of the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV). This work resulted in the identification of new factors contributing to virus infectivity, as well as the discovery of a critical single amino acid residue within GP2 of the PRRSV genome essential for its infectivity in target cells. Throughout his Ph.D. program, Jay was honored with the Widaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship Award twice, in the years 2020 and 2021. In his leisure time, Jay enjoys activities such as running, exploring new places, or simply taking long walks.