Advisory Board and Editors Virology
Barbara K. Felber
Dr. Felber received her Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Bern, Switzerland. After carrying out postdoctoral studies in the Laboratory of Biochemistry, NCI, she joined the Molecular Mechanisms of Carcinogenesis Laboratory, ABL-Basic Research Program, in 1985. In 1990, Dr. Felber established the Human Retrovirus Pathogenesis Group. In 1998, Dr. Felber received her tenure appointment and, in 1999, she joined the Center for Cancer Research, NCI.
Anne Fernandez
Research Director of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Lab leader of the Mammalian Cell Biology Unit at the Institute for Human Genetics (IGH) of the CNRS and University of Montpellier.
Principal research themes: Post-translational control of cell division cycle from quiescence to proliferation and differentiation of progenitor cells and multipotent stem cells from adult skeletal muscle.
Puri Fortes
PhD in Biology at Autonoma University (Madrid) working with Dr. Juan Ortin (NS1 protein from influenza virus and RNA splicing, transport and translation).
Postdoc at EMBL-Heidelberg working with Dr. Iain Mattaj (nuclear cap binding complex and splicing, polyadenylation and translation).
PI at CIMA (U1 snRNP regulation, viral miRNAs, viral lncRNAs, gene therapy, liver diseases)
Shou-Jiang (SJ) Gao
Dr. Gao is a Professor and Director of the Cancer Virology Program at the Hillman Cancer Center and in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Dr. Gao is an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He currently serves as the Editor-In-Chief for the Journal of Medical Virology, Section Editor for PLoS Pathogens, and Academic Editor for PLoS One and PeerJ. He is also serving on the Editorial Boards of over 10 peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Virology, Journal of Antivirals & Antiretrovirals, Journal of Molecular Biomarkers and Diagnosis, Journal of Microbial & Biochemical Technology, Sarcoma Research International, Oncolytic Virotherapy, etc.
Suresh Gawande
Dr. Suresh Gawande is a Principal Scientist at ICAR-Directorate of Onion and Garlic Research, Pune, India. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India in the discipline of Plant Pathology. His areas of interest are genomics of biotic and abiotic stress, host-pathogen-vector interaction of tospoviruses, microbial metagenomics, plant-pathogen diagnostics, mechanism of genetic and induced host plant resistance. Currently, he is working on biotechnological approaches for biotic stress management.
Marta Giovanetti
My research focuses on investigating the patterns of gene flow in pathogen populations, focusing in phylogenetics and phylogeography as tools to recreate and understand the determinants of viral outbreaks and how this information can be translated into public policy recommendations. More specifically, my research focuses on recent arboviral outbreaks in Latin America (Zika, Chikungunya, Dengue and Yellow fever viruses and more recently SARS-CoV-2 in Brazil, Italy and South Africa), combining genetic, spatial and ecological information. I am interested in the epidemiology and ecology of viruses in natural populations. My research involves developing and applying techniques to integrate virus genetic data with traditional clinical and demographic data.
Ana Grande-Pérez
PhD in Biology (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain) in 1998. Posdoctoral researcher (1999-2004) with Prof. Pedro R Lowenstein at the University of Manchester (UK) and Dr. Esteban Domingo at Centro de Biologia Molecular "Severo Ochoa" (Madrid, Spain). She is currently Associate Professor of Genetics and researcher of the IHSM-UMA-CSIC. Her research interests are the study of virus evolution and new antiviral strategies. She is also interested in the analysis of the genetic variability of RNA and ssDNA plant viruses.
Arthur Gruber
Prof. Arthur Gruber received his Bachelor’s in Veterinary Medicine, PhD in Biochemistry, Associate degree in Animal Pathology from the University of São Paulo. He is Associate Professor at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, affiliated member, European Viral Bioinformatics Center, and member of the directory board, Brazilian Association for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (AB3C). Prof. Gruber is PI of the Viral Genomics and Bioinformatics research group, developing bioinformatics methods and tools for viral detection, classification and discovery.
Laura Hertel
Principal Investigator, Center for Immunobiology and Vaccine Development, Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, California, USA. Formerly Assistant Professor in Molecular Virology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada.
Grant A Hill-Cawthorne
Senior Lecturer in Communicable Disease Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Sydney; Public Health Lead and Node Leader for Mass Gathering Medicine, Marie Bashir Institute, University of Sydney; Honorary Life Fellow, St Andrew's College within the University of Sydney; Senior Member and College Research Associate, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
Biographical details:
I studied medicine in Cambridge and during my junior doctor years was very interested in both neurology and infectious diseases. Clinically I specialised in medical microbiology, keeping a particular interest in neurological infections. For the past 3 years I have been in Saudi Arabia developing a pathogen genomics laboratory where I have gained first-hand experience of second generation sequencing and bioinformatics.
Research interests:
Infectious diseases and medical microbiology are undergoing the most significant shift since PCR was introduced. By the end of this decade, sequencing will have become the main option when investigating any outbreak or infection. I study the interface between genomics as a pure science and its translation into clinical and public health benefits.
At present I am examining the worldwide genomics of tuberculosis, the use of sequencing to characterise MRSA strains and the genomic variations in BCG vaccine strains used around the globe.
Branka Horvat
MD PhD,
Head of the team Immunobiology of Viral Infection;
Research in the field of interaction between the virus and the immune system
Lakshminarayan M Iyer
I received my PhD in plant virology and pursue problems in evolutionary biology. My primary research contributions and interests are in the fields of protein evolution and classification, genome evolution, protein biochemistry and functional predictions, and organismal biology.
Main areas of research:
* Protein evolution and classification.
Identifying trends in genome evolution.
* Prediction of novel biochemical activities and biological functions of proteins.
* Using comparative sequence and genome analysis to make inferences on organismal biology
* Understanding the forces of evolution that shape protein domain diversity.