JOHN F. SHERIDAN is Professor of Immunology and Director of the Comprehensive Training in Oral and Craniofacial Biology program. He currently holds the George C. Paffenbarger Alumni Endowed Research Chair, and is the Associate Director of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at the Ohio State University.
He received a B.S. degree from Fordham University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University. He did postdoctoral training in microbiology/immunology at the Duke University Medical Center and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is a founding member and past president of the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society.
His major research interests include neuroendocrine regulation of gene expression in inflammatory and immune responses, stress-induced susceptibility to infectious disease, viral pathogenesis and host immunity. Current studies seek to define key cellular and molecular mechanisms by which social behavior affects immunity and resistance to infectious disease. To date, these studies have demonstrated the importance of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in viral pathogenesis, resistance to infectious disease, effectiveness of vaccination, and tissue repair/wound healing.