Mason Firpo

Postdoctoral Appointee

(925) 294-6198

Sandia National Laboratories, California
P.O. Box 969
Livermore, CA 94551-0969

Biography

Mason Firpo is involved in the development of medical countermeasures against emerging infectious diseases using pooled CRISPR/Cas9 gene knockouts to uncover novel dependency factors.

Education

B.S. Biology, Microbiology Minor, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, 2018

Ph.D. Microbiology and Immunology, Loyola University Chicago, Maywood, 2024

Research Interests

Medical Countermeasures
Infectious Disease
Virology
Deep Mutational Scanning
Viral-host Interactions

Publications

Firpo MR, LoMascolo NJ, Petit MJ, Shah PS, Mounce BC (2023) Polyamines and eIF5A hypusination facilitate SREBP2 synthesis and cholesterol production leading to enhanced enterovirus attachment and infection. PLoS Pathog 19(4): e1011317.

Firpo MR, Mastrodomenico V, Hawkins GM, Prot M, Levillayer L, Gallagher T, Simon-Loriere E, and Mounce BC (2020) Targeting Polyamines Inhibits Coronavirus Infection by Reducing Cellular Attachment and Entry. ACS Infectious Diseases 7 (6), 1423-1432

Firpo MR, Mounce BC. Diverse Functions of Polyamines in Virus Infection. Biomolecules. 2020; 10(4):628.

Awards

American Heart Association Graduate Research Fellowship, 2020

American Society of Virology Travel Award, 2019

Frost Summer Research Fellowship, 2017