- Senior Scientist, Center for Advanced Therapeutics, The Wistar Institute
Dr. Samantha Soldan is Senior Staff Scientist at The Wistar Institute, based within the Center for Advanced Therapeutics and the laboratory of Paul Lieberman. She trained in virology and neuroimmunology and has built a career studying how human herpesviruses contribute to chronic neurologic disease.
Dr. Soldan’s research focuses on the contribution of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) to multiple sclerosis, building on the strong epidemiologic evidence that EBV is a major causative factor in MS. Her recent work, published in Nature Microbiology, demonstrated that MS patient–derived spontaneous B cells have distinct EBV and host gene expression profiles in active disease — and that EBV-targeting antiviral agents can selectively reduce the inflammatory phenotype of infected B cells, providing a mechanistic foundation for a novel class of MS therapeutics.
Dr. Soldan leads preclinical MS research and is spearheading the expansion of Wistar’s Center for Advanced Therapeutics into autoimmune disease. As a member of the broader Penn Colton Consortium ecosystem, she partners with Penn Neurology, the Bar-Or laboratory, and the wider Philadelphia drug discovery community to translate EBV-targeting strategies toward clinical application in MS.