My path to academia was not direct, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps right out of high school and deployed to Iraq in 2009, but I eventually found my way to the University of Washington where I found a passion for research. Upon graduating with my BS in microbiology I came to the University of Iowa where I received my MD and PhD, studying innate immune responses to Ebola virus, as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). I am currently a clinical pathology resident and will pursue fellowship training in transfusion medicine before joining the Karandikar lab full-time for my post doc. My primary area of interest involves the mechanisms and expanded clinical applications of extracorporeal photopheresis, although I will always have a soft spot in my heart for viruses. Outside of the lab, I primarily enjoy spending time with my wife and our three children. I have a handful of bizarre hobbies including catching, raising, and photographing arthropods and am slowly converting my home office into a rainforest. I am passionately interested in insect social behavior and harbor an obsession with ants.

Publications

• Rhein BA, Powers LS, Rogers K, Anantpadma M, Singh BK, Sakurai Y, Bair T, Miller-Hunt C, Sinn P, Davey RA, Monick MM, Maury W. (2015) Interferon-γ Inhibits Ebola Virus Infection. Schnell MJ, ed. PLoS Pathogens. 11(11):e1005263.
   
• Brouillette RB, Phillips EK, Patel R, Mahauad-Fernandez W, Moller-Tank S, Rogers KJ, Dillard JA, Cooney AL, Matinez-Sobrido L, Okeoma C, Maury W. (2018) TIM-1 Mediates Dystroglycan-Independent Entry of Lassa Virus. J Virol. 2018 Aug 15; 92(16): e00093-18.
   
• Brunton B, Rogers KJ, Phillips EK, Brouillette RB, Bouls R, Butler NS, Maury W. (2019) TIM-1 serves as a receptor for Ebola virus in vivo, enhancing viremia and pathogenesis. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2019 Jun 26;13(6):e0006983.
   
• Rogers KJ, Brunton B, Mallinger L, Bohan D, Sevcik KM, Chen J, Ruggio N, Maury W. (2019) IL-4/IL-13 polarization of macrophages enhances Ebola virus glycoprotein-dependent infection. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2019;13(12):e0007819. Published 2019 Dec 11. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0007819
   
• Rogers KJ, Jones-Burrage S, Maury W, Mukhopadhyay S. (2020) TF protein of Sindbis virus antagonizes host type I interferon responses in a palmitoylation-dependent manner. Virology. 2020;542:63-70. doi:10.1016/j.virol.2020.01.001
   
• Rogers KJ, Shtanko O, Vijay R, Mallinger LN, Joyner CJ, Galinski MR, Butler NS, Maury W. (2020) Acute Plasmodium Infection Promotes Interferon-Gamma-Dependent Resistance to Ebola Virus Infection. Cell Rep. 2020;30(12):4041-4051.e4. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2020.02.104
   
• Rogers KJ, Shtanko O, Stunz LL, Malinger LN, Arkee T, Schmidt ME, Bohan D, Brunton B, White JM, Varga SM, Butler NS, Bishop GA, Maury W. (2020) Frontline Science: CD40 signaling restricts RNA virus replication in Mϕs, leading to rapid innate immune control of acute virus infection [published online ahead of print, 2020 May 22]. J Leukoc Biol. 2020;10.1002/JLB.4HI0420-285RR. doi:10.1002/JLB.4HI0420-285RR
   
• Vijay R, Guthmiller JJ, Sturtz AJ, Surette FA, Rogers KJ, Sompallae RR, Li F, Pope RL, Chan J, Rivera F, Andrew D, Webb L, Maury WJ, Xue H, Engwerda CR, McCarthy JS, Boyle MJ, Butler NS. (2020) Infection-induced plasmablasts are a nutrient sink that impairs humoral immunity to malaria. Nat Immunol. 2020;21(7):790-801. doi:10.1038/s41590-020-0678-5
   
• Rogers KJ and Schlueter AJ. (2021) Two cases of brand-specific albumin sensitivity in patients receiving regular therapeutic plasma exchange. Transfus Apher Sci. 2021 Jan 2:103047. doi: 10.1016/j.transci.2020.103047
   
• Rahul Vijay, Jenna J. Guthmiller, Alexandria J. Sturtz, Sequoia Crooks, Jordan T. Johnson, Lei Li, Linda Yu-Ling Lan, Rosemary L. Pope, Yani Chen, Kai J. Rogers, Nirmal Dutta, Jason E. Toombs, Mary E. Wilson, Patrick C. Wilson, Wendy Maury, Rolf A. Brekken, Noah S. Butler. Hemolysis-associated phosphatidylserine exposure promotes polyclonal plasmablast differentiation. J Exp Med 7 June 2021; 218 (6): e20202359. doi: https://doi.org/10.1084/jem.20202359
   
• Dana Bohan, Hanorah Van Ert, Natalie Ruggio, Kai J Rogers, Mohammad Badreddine, José A Aguilar Briseño, Jonah M Elliff, Roberth Anthony Rojas Chavez, Boning Gao, Tomasz Stokowy, Eleni Christakou, Petri Kursula, David Micklem, Gro Gausdal, Hillel Haim, John Minna, James B Lorens, Wendy Maury. Phosphatidylserine receptors enhance SARS-CoV-2 infection. PLoS Pathog 2021 Nov 19;17(11):e1009743. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1009743. eCollection 2021 Nov.
   
• Judith Leon, Anna E Merrill, Kai Rogers, Julie Kurt, Spencer Dempewolf, Alexandra Ehlers, J Brooks Jackson, C Michael Knudson. SARS-CoV-2 antibody changes in patients receiving COVID-19 convalescent plasma from normal and vaccinated donors. Transfus Apher Sci 2021 Nov 23;103326. doi: 10.1016/j.transci.2021.103326.
   
• Van Ert HA, Bohan DW, Rogers K, Fili M, Rojas Chávez RA, Qing E, Han C, Dempewolf S, Hu G, Schwery N, Sevcik K, Ruggio N, Boyt D, Pentella MA, Gallagher T, Jackson JB, Merrill AE, Knudson CM, Brown GD, Maury W, Haim H. Limited Variation between SARS-CoV-2-Infected Individuals in Domain Specificity and Relative Potency of the Antibody Response against the Spike Glycoprotein. Microbiol Spectr. 2022 Feb 23;10(1):e0267621. doi: 10.1128/spectrum.02676-21. Epub 2022 Jan 26.
   
• Kai J Rogers, and Sharathkumar Bhagavathi. A case of secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis presenting with severe dyserythropoiesis in a patient with autoimmune hemolysis. Case Reports in Hematology, vol. 2022, Article ID 8505823, 4 pages, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8505823.
   
• Kai J Rogers, Ibrahim M Abukhiran, Sergei Syrbu, Michael Tomasson, Melissa Bates, Prajwal Dhakal, and Sharathkumar Bhagavathi. Utilizing digital pathology and immunohistochemistry of p53 as an adjunct to molecular testing in myeloid disorders. Academic Pathology. 2023;10(1). Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acpath.2022.100064.