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Jonathan Abraham, M.D., Ph.D.
Jonathan Abraham, M.D., Ph.D. is a Hattian/Canadian/American physician-scientist specializing in virology and infectious diseases. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Microbiology in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School (HMS)1. His laboratory investigates several infectious agents that cause lethal human diseases including New World arenaviruses, which cause viral hemorrhagic fevers with high mortality rates2. More recently, his laboratory received funding from the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness (MassCPR)3,4, to participate in a large scale response efforts assembled by HMS to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Abraham co-leads the Therapeutic Working Group of MassCPR and also serves on its Steering Committee.

Early life
Abraham was born in 1983, the fourth born son of Haitian immigrants to Canada3, where he was raised in Laval, a suburb north of Montreal. As a high school sophomore, his family relocated to Queens, NY, where he first discovered his passion for pursuing a career researching infectious diseases reading Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague6. By reading books by Dr. Paul Farmer, he learned of the systemic inequality in the low-income communities in the United States, manifested in the high rates of infant mortality, TB, and HIV infections7. Consequently, he dedicated his career to researching infectious diseases.

Education
Abraham attending Springfield Gardens High School in Queens, New York, and was a participant in the Quest Scholars Program, a predecessor to the QuestBridge program. The program allowed Abraham to spend a summer at Harvard College while as a rising senior in High School. Abraham then won a New York Times Scholarship as a High School senior, and went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in biochemical sciences in Harvard College in 2005.

Abraham participated in several programs meant to increase diversity in the scientific workforce. He was one of the first participants of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Exceptional Research Opportunities Program (EXROP) and worked in the laboratory of the HHMI Investigator Stephen C. Harrison, a structural biologist at Harvard7. Abraham’s research under Dr. Harrison’s guidance focused on designing drugs that disable the entry of the Ebola virus into cells. He also completed the Gateways to the Laboratory Summer Program at in 2002, which provides an encouraging environment to support underrepresented minorities interested in a career in medicine and MD-PhD programs9. After graduating from Harvard College, Abraham spent a year working at the National Institutes of Health working in the laboratory of Dr. Gary Nabel, where he continued to study Ebola virus.

For his graduate studies, Abraham secured funding from the HHMI Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study7, and completed his Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University in 2010, co-mentored by Drs. Hyeryun Choe and Steve Harrison. Abraham the obtained an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 2012 after completing the Harvard-MIT M.D.-Ph.D8. He completed the M.D.-Ph.D program in a total of 6 years. In a recent issue of Harvard Medicine, Abraham explained his interest in pursuing medicine10: “Part of my interest in becoming an infectious diseases doctor grew from my interest in addressing disparities in health care. I come from a Haitian background. When I was growing up, I would hear people say that Haitians were to blame for the U.S. HIV/AIDS epidemic. This drove me to fight such stereotypes. I felt that my best approach was to not only treat patients but also study the mechanisms behind these diseases.” Abraham completed a residency in internal Medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, then a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at a combined program at Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital.

Career
In addition to the fellowships Abraham was awarded during his undergraduate career, he received the 2011 Kean Fellowship, that allowed him to spend time in University of Buenos Aires, Argentina with a team of local scientists to design therapeutics for fatal hemorrhagic fever caused by some South American arenaviruses5. He has received the Harvard Medical School Dean’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Award and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Postdoctoral Enrichment Award. In 2016, Abraham received the Harvard Medical School Diversity Inclusion & Community Partnership (DICP) Faculty Fellowship, the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientits, and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Hearst Foundation Young Investigator in Medicine Award. He established his own research laboratory, becoming a member of faculty in the Department of Microbiology at Harvard Medical School in 20178. Research By sophomore year of college, Abraham had already started investigating therapeutics that prevent Ebola virus from entering cells. He switched his focus to arenaviruses, a family of which five viruses cause viral hemorrhagic fevers. As an M.D.-Ph.D. student in the laboratory of Dr. Hyeryun Choe, at the time at Boston Children’s Hospital, he helped identify the iron-uptake protein transferrin receptor 1 as a cellular receptor for New World hemorrhagic fever arenaviruses. Within the first year of his Ph.D, his work in collaboration with others in the Choe and Harrison labs lead to determining the molecular structure of TfR1 bound to the surface protein of Machupo virus7.

Abraham’s current research focuses on uncovering the mechanisms of the human immune system for fighting potentially deadly viral infections, using methods in human immunology and structural biology. Focusing particularly on viral entry and antibody neutralization11, the laboratory investigates the mechanism of viral infection in order to design antibody-based therapeutics. His research identifies cell receptors with which the viruses bind to infect cells, using techniques of molecular biology, and protein biochemistry, as well as visualizing that molecular interaction with structural biology techniques such as X-ray crystallography, and cryo-electron microsopy (cryo-EM).

Currently, the Abraham Lab is investigating cross-reactive monoclonal antibodies derived from COVID-19 survivors plasma3,12, funded by the MassCPR initiative to fight the pandemic as well as prepare for future outbreaks. In a 2017 interview with Harvard Medicine10, Abraham discussed the danger of one of the most pervasive myths regarding the spread of infectious diseases, especially of novel viruses: “There is a lingering idea that our nation’s geography will somehow protect us from future outbreaks. I’m glad it’s a myth that hasn’t yet been disproven, but it is one that makes us vulnerable. We are interdependent and really need to take care of each other. The safest world is one in which everyone is being vaccinated or being treated.”

Personal life
In addition to his strides as a physician, professor, and principle investigator of a research lab, Abraham has strived to mentor the next generation of young scientists. He served for 10 years as an in house advisor at Leverett House, an undergraduate dormitory at Harvard College, where he regularly interacted and advised students, especially ones interested in pursuing medical school. Abraham is married to another accomplished Harvard faculy member, Dr. Mélissa Léger-Abraham13, who uses structural biology to study protein translation in parasites. They have two young children.

Publications
1. Clark LE*, Mahmutovic S*, Raymond DD, Dilanyan T, Koma T, Manning JT, Shankar S, Levis SC, Briggiler AM, Enria DA, Wucherpfennig KW, Paessler S, Abraham J. (2018) Vaccine-elicited receptor-binding site antibodies neutralize two New World hemorrhagic fever arenaviruses.

2. Gruszczyk J, Kanjee U, Chan LJ, Menant S, Malleret B, Lim NTY, Schmidt CQ, Mok YF, Lin KM, Pearson RD, Rangel G, Smith BJ, Call MJ, Weekes MP, Griffin MDW, Murphy JM, Abraham J, Sriprawat K, Menezes MJ, Ferreira MU, Russell B, Renia L, Duraisingh MT, Tham WH. (2018) Transferrin receptor 1 is a reticulocyte-specific receptor for Plasmodium vivax..

3. Mahmutovic S, Clark L, Levis SC, Briggiler AM, Enria DA, Harrison SC, Abraham J. (2015) Molecular basis for antibody-mediated neutralization of New World hemorrhagic fever mammarenaviruses..

4. Demogines A, Abraham J, Choe H, Farzan M, Sawyer SL(2013) Dual Host-Virus Arms Races Shape an Essential Housekeeping Protein. PLoS Biol.11(5):e1001571.doi:10.1371/ journal.pbio.1001571.

5. Helguera G*, Jemielity S*, Abraham J, Cordo S, Rodriguez JA, Martinez G, Bregni C, Wang J, Farzan M, Penichet M, Candurra N, Choe H. (2012) An antibody recognizing the apical domain of human transferrin receptor 1 efficiently neutralizes all New World hemorrhagic fever arenaviruses. Journal of Virology. Apr: 86 (7):4024-4028.

6. Choe H, Jemielty S, Abraham J, Radoshitzky SR, Farzan M. (2011) Transferrin receptor 1 in the zoonosis and pathogenesis of New World hemorrhagic fever arenaviruses. Current Opinion in Microbiology. Aug: 14(4):476-482.

7. Abraham J, Corbett KD, Farzan M, Choe H, Harrison SC. (2010) Structural basis for receptor recognition by New World hemorrhagic fever arenaviruses. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. Apr;17(4):438-444.

8. Hood CL, Abraham J, Boyington JC, Leung K, Kwong PD, Nabel GJ. (2010) Biochemical and Structural Characterization of Cathepsin L-Processed Ebola Virus Glycoprotein: Implications for Viral Entry and Immunogenicity. Journal of Virology. 84: 2972-2982.

9. Radoshitzky SR*, Abraham J*, Spiropoulou CF, Kuhn JH, Nguyen D, Li W, Nagel J, Schmidt PJ, Nunberg JH, Andrews NC, Farzan M, Choe H. (2007) Transferrin receptor 1 is a cellular receptor for New World hemorrhagic fever arenaviruses. Nature. Mar 1;446(731):92-6.
 * = Equal contribution

10. Betts MR, Nason MC, West SM, De Rosa SC, Migueles SA, Abraham J, Lederman MM, Benito JM, Goepfert PA, Connors M, Roederer M, Koup RA. (2006) HIV nonprogressors preferentially maintain highly functional HIV-specific CD8+ T cells. Blood. Jun 15;107 (12):4781-4789.