Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Gertrude and David Feinson Chair in Medicine
Harold and Muriel Block Faculty Scholar in Virology

Degree: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2001

Description of my research
Emerging viruses, viral entry, antiviral vaccines and immunotherapeutics

My lab focuses on understanding the molecular warfare between viruses and cells and using this knowledge to advance antiviral countermeasures and enhance pandemic preparedness. We study many enveloped viruses, including filoviruses, bunyaviruses, coronaviruses, and poxviruses. Our key accomplishments include the discovery of a novel endosomal proteolytic cascade required for filovirus entry and critical entry receptors for filoviruses and hantaviruses. In 2019, I helped create Prometheus, an NIH-funded Center of Excellence in Translational Research (CETR) to develop antibody therapeutics against filoviruses and bunyaviruses. A signal accomplishment of Prometheus is the development of a pan-ebolavirus antibody cocktail, for which a human Phase I clinical trial was recently completed.  In 2024, I helped create PROVIDENT, an NIH-funded ReVAMPP center comprising an international group of scientists from academia, industry, and government whose goal is to establish and pre-position optimized platforms for the development of vaccines and antibody-based therapeutics against three major groups of emerging enveloped RNA viruses.

Reason for Running
ASV has played a formative role in my development as a virologist throughout my career—as a graduate student, postdoctoral fellow, and an independent investigator—and it continues to be vital to my trainees. I look forward to working with the Council to maintain ASV’s central role in U.S. virology research, to communicate the importance of our work to the lay public and other stakeholders, and to help our organization and community navigate the new challenges that we are facing as our nation and the world adjust to the post-COVID landscape.

Past ASV Service
State-of-the-Art Speaker: 2012
Annual Meeting Workshop Convener: 2013

Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Microbiology
Director, Center for Research on Coronaviruses and Other Emerging Pathogens

Degree: Harvard University, PhD 1976

Description of my research
Coronavirus replication and pathogenesis; host virus interactions, OAS-RNase L pathway, viral and host double-stranded RNA

I have worked on many aspects of coronavirus replication and pathogenesis over the last four decades, making contributions to understanding the basic biology as well as viral entry, organ tropism and virulence.  My lab group had focused for many years on the murine coronavirus (MHV) mouse model of hepatitis and CNS disease and more recently shifted toward the human coronaviruses, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, and the “common cold” coronaviruses, 229E and NL63. For the last ten years, we have worked on coronavirus interaction with the host innate immune response, viral antagonists of double-stranded RNA induced antiviral pathways and interactions with the unfolded protein response pathways. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have used a primary nasal epithelial culture model to mimic the earliest site of infection and compared infections with highly pathogenic and common cold human coronaviruses. We found that interferon signaling responses are temperature dependent and variable among the coronaviruses and are largely responsible for the viral clearance (cold viruses) or persistence (lethal viruses). My other research interests include activation and antagonism of the double-stranded RNA induced antiviral responses, in particular the oligoadenylate-ribonuclease L (OAS-RNase L) pathway, Zika-virus-host interactions and pathogenic effects of host endogenous dsRNA.

Reason for Running
I have been working in the field of virology for more than forty years. I have been attending ASV meetings beginning with the intial meeting at Cornell in 1982 and before that attending ASM meetings, having been a member since 1974. Thus, I have a thorough overview of how the field of virology has developed over decades as well as an extensive knowledge of coronaviruses and other viruses. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have used this knowledge to present numerous seminars (more than 90), to participate as a speaker and panelist at National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicime and ASM events and to talk to journalists [interviews on This Week in Virology (TWIV) and NPR Radio Times] and community groups to educate on the history and biology of coronaviruses and demystify the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. I have had administrative experience through my current role as Vice Chair of the Microbiology Department and Director of the Center for Research on Coronaviruses at Penn, and Governor of AAM as well as past service as Associate Dean for Postdoctoral Training and as a member of the steering committee of the GREAT Group of the American Association of Medical Colleges Postdoctorate section. This along with mentoring many graduate students and postdocs in my lab, has given me extensive experience and insight into the issues facing trainees in virology. I have served several terms on NIH study sections and Journal editorial boards, currently serving an an Associate Editor for Fields “Virology” and on the Editorial Board of PNAS. Going forward there will be challenges facing the field of virology including skeptics critical of important virology research as well as funding from NIH. If elected as ASV president, I feel I would be in an excellent position, connected to ASV as well as ASM and NAS, to represent the needs and ideas of virologists.

Past ASV Service
ATCC Advisory Committee Member: 2004 -2005
Program Committee Member: 2007 - 2009
Annual Meeting Workshop Convener: 2006, 2013
Symposium Speaker: 2013