Department of Genetics
Sterling Hall of Medicine, I-141
333 Cedar Street
New Haven, CT 06510
Tel: 203-785-2679
Fax: 203-785-6765
daniel.dimaio@yale.edu
Principal Investigator Daniel DiMaio, M.D., Ph.D., has been awarded an eight million dollar, five-year renewal from the National Cancer Institute for a Program Project grant on the Molecular Basis of Viral and Cellular Transformation. Now in year 36, the grant focuses on molecular analysis of tumor viruses and their interactions with cells. Project Leaders George Miller, M.D. and Joan Steitz, Ph.D., and core director Joann Sweasy, Ph.D., continue as members of this longstanding program. Dr. DiMaio is also the Scientific Director of the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor and Vice Chairman of Genetics.
Associate Professor of Immunology Susan Kaech, Ph.D., was recently named as Early Career Scientist by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). The six year award will support Dr. Kaech's research on protective T cells. By focusing on memory T cells, Dr. Kaech hopes to develop ways to enhance responses to infection and improve vaccines.
David Spiegel, M.D., Ph.D., recently joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry with a joint appointment in the Department of Pharmacology. His laboratory's research combines synthetic chemistry with cell biology and virology in designing novel compounds that can enhance the recognition of various pathogens, including viruses, by the human immune system.
Priti Kumar, Ph.D., recently joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the Section of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine, with a secondary appointment in Microbial Pathogenesis and the Microbiology Graduate Program. Her primary research focus is developing novel RNA interference-based approaches to combat virus infections, including HIV and flaviviruses.
Recently-arrived associate professor Richard Sutton, M.D., Ph.D., has joined the Molecular Virology Program. Dr. Sutton has a primary faculty appointment in the Section of Infectious Diseases of the Department of Internal Medicine, with a joint appointment in Microbial Pathogenesis and the Microbiology Graduate Program. His studies revolve around the lentiviruses including HIV and the development and use of retrovirus vectors.
Susan M. Kaech, Ph.D. was named a winner of the coveted Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the U.S. government's highest honor for new investigators in science and technology. In a ceremony at the White House, Dr. Kaech was recognized for characterizing the development of memory T cells in long-term immune protection.
Yorgo Modis, Ph.D., has received an Investigator in Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award from the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund. This award will fund his studies of the mechanisms of flavivirus entry into cells and may provide insights into the design of antivirals or vaccines against agents such as West Nile Virus and Dengue Virus.
Erol Fikrig, M.D., has been named an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He will develop laboratory models to test new therapies and vaccines against vector-borne diseases.
Akiko Iwasaki, Ph.D., has received funding from Gilead Sciences to study the mechanism of toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) signaling and immune stimulation. Extending on the previous discovery of her group, that TLR7 is the sensor for ssRNA viruses such as influenza and vesicular stomatitis virus, this funding will support research on molecular mechanisms by which this receptor is activated to produce the antiviral cytokines.
As of August 1, Peter Tattersall, Ph.D., became the Principal Investigator of our predoctoral training grant in virology. This grant was previously headed by Dan DiMaio.
Anthony van den Pol, Ph.D., has received a new five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop oncolytic viruses that target brain tumors. The grant focuses on variant vesicular stomatitis viruses and their selective targeting and destruction of glioblastomas.
Based on his record of scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced microbiology, Peter Tattersall, Ph.D., has been elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. Dr. Tattersall is the sixth member of the Molecular Virology Program to receive this honor. Also elected was David Pintel, Ph.D., professor of microbiology at the University of Missouri at Columbia. David was a postdoctoral fellow with Drs. Tattersall and David Ward at Yale.
Daniel DiMaio, M.D., Ph.D., was named the Scientific Director of the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center, where he will provide broad oversight over basic cancer research at Yale. He will continue as Director of the Molecular Virology Program of the Cancer Center.
Erol Fikrig, M.D., has been named Chief of the Section of Infectious Diseases. He will continue his active research program on Lyme Disease and West Nile and related viruses.
The 70th birthday of George Miller, M.D., was honored with a one-and-a-half day symposium and celebration that featured talks by many of his colleagues and former trainees. In honor of his long-standing status of Chief of the Section of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and the discovery of the Epstein-Barr Virus ZEBRA protein, Dr. Miller was presented with a striped chieftain's robe from Ghana.
Janet Brandsma, Ph.D., and Paul Lizardi, Ph.D., have received a pilot grant from the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center to study methylation of human papillomavirus and genomic DNA methylation in cervical cancer.
Brett Lindenbach, Ph.D., and Walther Mothes, Ph.D., have received a pilot grant from the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center to study mechanisms of hepatitis C virus cell entry.
The Molecular Virology Basic Research Program of the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center received the highest rating, Outstanding, at the recent review of the Cancer Center. The Program, headed by Dan DiMaio, includes 17 virologists on campus. Yale virologists not already members of this Program, interested in tumor virology or HIV should contact Dr. DiMaio.
The William H. Prusoff Foundation has generously endowed a lectureship in the name of Edith Hsiung, a distinguished virologist who for many years directed the Diagnostic Virology laboratories at the West Haven Veterans Administration Hospital. Dr. Prusoff is Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology and a senior research scientist in that department.
In work featured in on the cover of an upcoming issue of the Journal of Virology, Yorgo Modis in collaboration with Erol Fikrig solved the structure of the major envelope glycoprotein of the West Nile Virus.
After a year and one half in exile in the Boyer Center, the DiMaio laboratory has returned to newly renovated laboratories on the first floor of the I-wing of the Sterling Hall of Medicine. Visit and see this wonderful new space, including a gallery of illustrations from the cover of the Journal of Virology.
Brett Lindenbach, Ph.D., has recently joined the Yale faculty as an assistant professor of Microbial Pathogenesis. When he was a post-doctoral fellow with Charles Rice at the Rockefeller University, Brett developed the first complete system for replication of hepatitis C virus in cell culture. He will continue to explore hepatitis C virus replication in his new laboratory at Yale, which is located on the third floor of the Boyer Center.
Bob Means recently received a pilot grant from the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center to explore down-regulation of immune molecules by small viral transmembrane proteins. He will collaborate with Dan DiMaio in this project.
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Last updated
11/12/09
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