Sivaprakash Rathinavelu, Ph.D. received his doctorate in Microbiology at the University of Madras, Chennai, India. He then started to work on Melioidosis at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur as a research fellow.  Dr. Rathinavelu was awarded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC where he worked on characterizing Lyme disease spirochetes from feeding nymphal ticks. He also looked at the role of host complement in providing immunity to infection with the Lyme disease Spirochetes. In 2002, Dr. Rathinavelu joined Professor Juanita L. Merchant at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he worked on cloning and expressing Helicobacter pylori genes to look at their antigenic potential.

Dr. Rathinavelu joined the Institute in 2006 as Research Laboratory Specialist Lead and was promoted to Research Investigator in the Department of Internal Medicine and M-NIMBS in 2008. Dr. Rathinavelu’s research interests are in the areas of infectious disease and vaccine. He has successfully developed a nanoemulsion formulation that effectively kills pathogens infecting the Cystic Fibrosis lung and is currently looking at the toxicology of the formulation in mice. He is also involved with the development of nanoemulsion adjuvant based vaccines.