Wendy L. Picking, PhD

Professor

  • B.A., University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
  • Ph.D., University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Wendy L. Picking

Building Address:  Bond Life Science Center, Rm 340c
Phone Number:  573-882-0093
Email:  wendy.picking@missouri.edu

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Dr. Wendy Picking uses her years of basic research on bacterial type III secretion systems to develop subunit vaccines to prevent infections by Gram negative pathogens such as Shigella spp., Salmonella enterica, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and others. Her team produces recombinant proteins derived from the type III secretion apparatus in E. coli and purifies them via standard chromatographic methods. Unlike other vaccines that have attempted to protect against these pathogens, she has selected to follow where the science leads and administer these vaccines intranasally to elicit a mucosal response rather than intramuscularly which routinely fails for vaccines against bacterial pathogens.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
  1. Martinez-Becerra FJ, Kumar P, Vishwakarma V, Kim JH, Arizmendi O, Middaugh CR, Picking WD, Picking WL. (2018) Characterization and Protective Efficacy of Type III Secretion Proteins as a Broadly Protective Subunit Vaccine against Salmonella enterica Serotypes. Infect Immun. 86(3). pii: e00473-17. doi: 10.1128/IAI.00473-17. PMID: 2931123; PMC5820934
  2. Das S, Howlader, DR, Zheng Q, Ratnakaram SS, Whittier SK, Lu T, Keith JD, Picking WD, Birket SE, Picking WL (2020) Development of a broadly protective, self-adjuvanting subunit vaccine to prevent infections by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. F ront. Immun. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.583008. PubMed PMID: 33281815; PMC7705240
  3. Howlader, DR, Das S, Lu T, Varisco, DJ, Dietz, ZK, Walton, SP, Ratnakaram SS, Gardner, FM, Ernst, RK, Picking WD, Picking WL (2020) Effect of two unique nanoparticle formulations on the efficacy of a broadly protective vaccine against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Front Pharmacol. 2021 Aug 18;12:706157. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.706157. eCollection 2021.PMID: 34483911; PMC8416447
  4. Lu, T., Das, S., Howlader, D.R., Zheng, Q, Siva Sai Kumar, R., Whittier, S.K.., Picking, W.D. and Picking W.L. (2021) L-DBF elicits cross protection against different serotypes of Shigella spp. Front. Trop. Dis, 17 December 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fitd.2021.729731