Marsia Gustiananda, S.Si., Ph.D.

Research Interest

  • T-cell epitopes mapping from pathogenic agents and cancer antigens using combine methods of immunoinformatic and in-vitro immunology assays to develop vaccines, immunotherapy, and diagnostics
  • T-cell based immune monitoring and diagnostics post vaccination and infection by SARS-CoV-2
  • T-cell epitopes cross reactivity between SARS-CoV-2 and common cold coronaviruses, live-attenuated vaccines, and other un-related pathogens
  • Identification of peptides binding to HLA alleles predominant in Indonesian population (i.e. HLA-A*24:07) to improve the accuracy of immunoinformatic prediction tools

Biography

After completing her training as an Analyst in Chemistry at a vocational senior high school in Bandung, Marsia Gustiananda advanced her chemical knowledge at the Department of Chemistry, Bandung Institute of Technology.

In her final year of B.Sc., she extended her studies to biochemistry and molecular biology and subsequently pursued her master’s degree at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University, which was later upgraded into a Ph.D. degree. During her Ph.D., Marsia advanced her biochemical experience, learning peptide/protein science and mastering biophysical techniques to study the structure and function of prion protein repeat peptides. Marsia further developed her biochemistry and molecular biology skills in the research on yeast mutant resistance to atovaquone at the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, before joining the Protein Chemistry group, Leiden Institute of Chemistry in the Netherlands where she developed a fluorescence-based histamine and cholesterol biosensor. In 2009, upon receiving the Small Grant Awards from the International Society for Infectious Diseases and Science and Technology Research Grants from Indonesia TORAY Science Foundation, Marsia started to build a platform of research on T-cell epitope mapping for avian influenza A virus H5N1, combining immunoinformatics and in-vitro T-cell immunology assays.  In 2012, she received a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship Award that enabled her to join the research group of Prof. Hildebrand at the Oklahoma University Health Science Center to study peptide binding to HLA-A*24:07, one of the major HLA alleles found in the Indonesian population.  She is currently a faculty member of the Biomedicine Department and teaches subjects on immunology, cell signaling, cancer immunology, and virology.  She is a recipient of the Southeast Asia Europe Joint Funding Scheme for Research and Innovation Grant from KEMDIKBUDRISTEK to study cell-mediated immunity toward SARS-CoV-2 in the Indonesian population in collaboration with University Hospital Tuebingen and Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University.

Award

YearAwardSource
2019Best Flash Oral Presentations at Special Session: Bioinformatics in IndonesiaAPBioNET 18th International Conference on Bioinformatics
2019Scuola Superiore di Immunologia Ruggero Ceppellini full bursaries fellowshipsEFIS-EJI Ruggero Ceppellini Advanced School of Immunology, Italy
2012Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship Award 
2011Travel award from NTD@TRIAD to attend Neglected Tropical Disease Vaccine Design Toolkit and Training WorkshopsUniversity of Rhode Island, USA
2010Australian Endeavour Awards Postdoctoral Fellowship 

Research Activity and Highlighted Project

 

Year

Title

Partners

2021-2024

Characterization of T-cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in the South East Asian and European population, primary investigator 

Southeast Asia – Europe Joint Funding Scheme on Research and Innovation

University Hospital Tuebingen and Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University

2020-2023

Anti-microbial, anti-inflammation, and immunomodulatory activity of calophyllolide extract of Tamanu oil as active compound for the treatment of atopic dermatitis, co-investigator 

World Class Research – Indonesian Ministry of Research and Higher Education

2022

Identification of T-cell epitopes cross reactivity between SARS-CoV-2 and common cold coronaviruses, live-attenuated vaccines, human proteome and microbiome

 

2022

Immunoinformatics analysis of cancer antigens to design genome-derived epitope-based cancer vaccines

 

2022

Characterization and comparison of peptides Binding to HLA-A*24:02 and HLA-A*24:07 to understand the differences in disease outcomes

 

Selected Publication

Gustiananda, M., Sulistyo, B. P., Agustriawan, D., & Andarini, S. (2021). Immunoinformatics Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 ORF1ab Polyproteins to Identify Promiscuous and Highly Conserved T-Cell Epitopes to Formulate Vaccine for Indonesia and the World Population. Vaccines, 9(12), 1459.

Pribowo A, Girish J, Gustiananda M, Nandhira RG, Hartrianti P. (2021) Potential of Tamanu (Calophyllum inophyllum) Oil for Atopic Dermatitis Treatment. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2021;2021:6332867.

Gustiananda M (2020) What do T cells see in SARS-CoV2? Immunoinformatics analysis to identify T cell epitopes from SARS- CoV2 ORF1ab polyprotein. Indonesian Journal of Life Sciences 2(1).

Gustiananda M, Andreoni A, Tabares LC, Tepper AWJW, Fortunato L, Aartsma TJ, Canters GW. (2012) Sensitive detection of histamine using fluorescently labeled oxido-reductases. Biosensors and Bioelectronics 31:419-425.

Gustiananda M. (2011) Immunoinformatics analysis of H5N1 proteome for designing an epitope-derived vaccine and predicting the prevalence of pre-existing cellular-mediated immunity toward bird flu virus in Indonesian population. Immunome Res. 7(3):1-11.

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