Patrizia Caposio

Associate Professor
Patrizia received her B.Sc. in Biology from University of Turin, Italy in 1999. She obtained her Master in Microbiology and Virology in 2004 and the doctorate degree in Biochemistry in 2007 at the Department of Public Health and Microbiology, University of Turin.During the last twenty years Patrizia has had a long-standing interest in mechanisms of HCMV latency and reactivation and the effects of persistent infection on chronic disease in the host. She has developed in vitro and humanized mouse models to characterize HCMV genes involved in angiogenesis and regulation of progenitor cell hematopoiesis.

Patrizia enjoys gardening, hiking, skiing, and traveling around the world!

Wilma Perez

Research Associate
Wilma finished her B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico many, many years ago.  She has worked at OHSU for 21 years, and the last 11 years at VGTI. Wilma has experience in HCMV BAC recombineering, adenoviral and lentiviral vectors. She is also an expert in generating hESC-derived CD34+ to perform HCMV latency and reactivation in vitro assay.

Wilma enjoys nature and portrait photography, knitting, hiking and gravel cycling.

Aaron Dirck

Postdoctoral Fellow
Aaron received his B.A. in Biology from Carthage College in Kenosha, WI in 2012. He obtained his Ph.D. form the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) in 2019 from the Department of Microbiology & Immunology. Aaron has a background in human betaherpesvirus manipulation of the host cell, specifically looking at protein trafficking.

Aaron enjoys playing soccer, hiking, and brewing beer.

Michael Daily

Research Assistant II
Michael received his B.Sc in Biology from Linfield College in 2015. He has been at VGTI since 2020 and has experience in molecular biology and virology.