Our Research Team
The Sikora Lab develops new strategies to prevent and treat gonorrhea, a pathogen that the CDC and WHO rank among the most urgent antimicrobial-resistance threats. Our multidisciplinary, international team designs vaccines, discovers new antimicrobials, dissects bacterial pathogenesis, and builds human tissue-culture models to understand how biological sex shapes the host response to infection.
We solve challenging problems by pairing distinct expertise at the bench, holding to rigorous science, and mentoring scientists at every career stage.
Aleksandra E. Sikora, PhD
Dr. Aleksandra E. Sikora is a Professor in the College of Pharmacy at Oregon State University (OSU) and Adjunct Professor in the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Dr. Sikora is a microbiologist with experience in bacterial pathogenesis, preclinical animal models, proteomics, vaccine design, and identification of new antimicrobials. She received an MSc in Microbiology from the University of Gdansk (Poland) and a PhD in Molecular Biology from the same university, followed by five years of postdoctoral training in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan Medical School. She started her independent position at OSU/OHSU in 2011, where she has built a strong, extramurally funded research program. In her research, Dr. Sikora focuses on developing gonorrhea vaccine(s) using a mouse model of gonorrhea, understanding the molecular mechanisms of host-bacteria interactions, developing antimicrobials, and elucidating outer membrane biogenesis. Her laboratory advances gonococcal vaccine candidates across multiple complementary platforms, including recombinant subunit antigens, outer membrane vesicles, virus-like particles, mRNA-lipid nanoparticles, and oral delivery vectors. Dr. Sikora is a recipient of prestigious awards including the Women’s Career Development Grant from the American Society for Microbiology (2010), OSU President’s Commission on the Status of Women Scholarship (2014), Phi Kappa Phi Emerging Scholar Award (2016), the OSU Faculty Senate Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research, and Leadership (2019), the 2020 OHSU Women in Academic Health and Medicine Discovery Award for Women in Science, and the OSU Advantage Accelerator Societal Impact Award in 2024.
Principal Investigator, Professor
Inés Cadena, PhD
Ines earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador, and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Oregon State University in 2024. As a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Sikora lab, her research focuses on developing physiologically relevant three-dimensional (3D) human tissue models to investigate host–pathogen interactions during Neisseria gonorrhoeae infection. She is particularly interested in understanding sex-specific differences in infectious disease biology and in developing new methodological approaches that improve vaccine and therapeutic screening while reducing reliance on animal models. Her broader research interests include tissue engineering, biomaterials, translational assay development, and high-content imaging, with the goal of advancing innovative technologies that bridge fundamental research and clinical applications.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ines-cadena-c/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=J82dJXkAAAAJ&hl=en
Postdoctoral Scholar
Research Associate
Abhishek Chanda, PhD
Abhishek is a Research Associate in Sikora Lab at Oregon State University's College of Pharmacy, where he works on vaccine development strategies against Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a bacterium of urgent global antimicrobial-resistance concern. His work centers on purification of recombinant antigen candidates, murine immunizations and infection challenge studies, and assessment of the resulting immune responses through ELISA, immunoblotting, and functional assays.
During his PhD in India, he characterized the venom proteomes of cobra species, studied their cross-reactivity with commercial antivenoms, and designed epitope-based immunogens that earned an Indian patent.
Outside the lab, Abhishek enjoys singing, playing guitar, hiking the trails of Oregon, and cooking traditional comfort food.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Junaid Nazir, PhD
Dr. Junaid Nazir is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Sikora Laboratory at Oregon State University. He earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Biotechnology, where his research focused on developing recombinant Lactobacillus-based oral vaccines against Salmonella in poultry. His work integrates microbiology, immunology, vaccinology, and bioinformatics to understand host–pathogen interactions and support the development of next-generation vaccines. His current research focuses on Neisseria gonorrhoeae, including the identification and characterization of vaccine candidate antigens using computational and experimental approaches. His research interests include bacterial pathogenesis, vaccine development, mucosal immunology, and reverse vaccinology.
Outside the laboratory, Dr. Nazir enjoys hiking and exploring nature, watching science and history documentaries, and keeping up with advances in biomedical research. He values continuous learning and enjoys spending time outdoors to recharge and find inspiration for new ideas.
Undergraduate Researcher
Adisa Abiola