George Khoury Lecture

George Khoury, highly regarded as a superb scientist and caring mentor, was chief of the NCI Laboratory of Molecular Virology. He conducted some of the earliest research with genetic enhancers and was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences shortly before his death from lymphoma in 1987 at age 43. This lecture, now part of the Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series, honors his memory. George Khoury lecturers are selected by a committee led by the NIH Virology Interest Group and approved by the NIH Director.

The Interface between Metabolism and Immunity within a Virus Microenvironment

Ileana M. Cristea, Ph.D.
Princeton University

George Khoury Lecture

Viral infections spread within complex and dynamic cellular microenvironments that shape the outcome of infection. As such, intra-cellular communication cascades, as well as communication between infected cells and cells in the surrounding tissue create a virus microenvironment. Here, we will describe some of our efforts to characterize communication at the intra- and inter-cellular levels.

Controlling The Message: How Herpesviruses Manipulate The Gene Expression Landscape

Britt Glaunsinger, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley

George Khoury Lecture

Oncogenic herpesviruses such as Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus restrict cellular gene expression to dampen immune responses, while simultaneously stealing the cell’s machinery to express viral genes. This restriction initiates through accelerated mRNA decay in the cytoplasm, which subsequently induces broad repression of cellular mRNA synthesis both via relocalization of RNA binding proteins and turnover of RNA polymerase subunits. Herpesviruses, which are among the most successful human pathogens, have evolved to escape this repression and maintain robust viral transcription.

Human Oncogenic Viruses: Nature, Discovery, and Running Around in Circles

Yuan Chang, M.D.
University of Pittsburgh

George Khoury Lecture

Seven viruses collectively comprise an important cause of cancer, particularly in less developed countries and under conditions of immune suppression. Most of these viruses are common infections for which malignancy is a rare consequence. Viral tumors are by nature biological accidents and tumor viruses are generally ‘non-permissive’ for replication within tumor cells having contracted expression of viral products.

Quasispecies Suppression of Viral Drug Resistance

Karla Kirkegaard, Ph.D.
Stanford University School of Medicine

George Khoury Lecture

The spectre of drug resistance renders the development of antivirals difficult, especially in RNA viruses whose genome replication is highly error prone. Karla Kirkegaard’s lab has been working to develop principles by which the outgrowth of drug-resistant viruses can be thwarted through the choice of noncanonical antiviral targets.

Getting by with a little help from their friends: how bacteria aid virus infection

Julie Pfeiffer, Ph.D.
UT Southwestern Medical Center

George Khoury Lecture

Dr. Pfeiffer studies RNA virus evolution, dissemination, pathogenesis, and transmission. Her recent interests include examining the impact of intestinal microbiota on enteric virus infections. Her lab has determined that intestinal bacteria promote replication of several enteric viruses and ongoing work is examining mechanisms and consequences of bacteria-virus interactions.

Sounding the alarm and putting out the fire: new mechanistic insights into inflammation triggered by invasive infection

Judy Lieberman, M.D., Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School

George Khoury Lecture

The Lieberman laboratory has been in the forefront of developing RNAi-based therapeutics and using RNAi for genome-wide screening. They were the first to demonstrate that siRNAs could protect mice from disease. They developed methods to harness RNAi to inhibit herpes and HIV transmission in animal models. They have developed strategies for cell-targeted RNAi to treat viral infection, immune disease, and cancer. They are currently investigating tumor-targeted siRNAs for immunotherapy to activate tumor expression of neoantigens and avoid autoimmune side effects of checkpoint inhibitors.

Thinking about cancer as an infectious disease

Patrick S. Moore, M.D., M.P.H.
University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute

George Khoury Lecture

Infection causes 1 in 5 cancers worldwide. Many tumor suppressors, such as p53, have dual functions to prevent tumor cell growth and to inhibit viral replication. These molecules may have evolved from a primordial unicellular eukaryotic antiviral defense system that inhibited DNA synthesis and initiated programmed cell death in response to viral infection. Two cancer viruses found by our lab, Kaposi’s sarcoma herpesvirus and Merkel cell polyomavirus, provide examples of how virus targeting in a cell can be used to understand important circuits controlling tumor cell growth.

Hepatitis C and beyond: Never a dull moment

Charles M. Rice, Ph.D.
The Rockefeller University

George Khoury Lecture

The Rice lab focuses on RNA viruses and is well known for its work on hepatitis C. Besides studies aimed at understanding basic viral replicative processes the lab also probes the interface between viruses and host intrinsic and innate immunity and small non-coding RNAs.

Intrinsic host defenses against HIV-1

Paul D. Bieniasz, Ph.D.
Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center

George Khoury Lecture

The investigation of impeded viral replication in animal cells of particular types or species has uncovered great complexity in the interaction between retroviruses and their hosts. These studies have revealed that cells are equipped with a diverse set of proteins that can directly inhibit the replication of retroviruses, including HIV-1. Genes encoding antiretroviral proteins exhibit unusually high sequence variation, presumably because selection pressures exerted by ancient viral infections have caused them to evolve at an unusually rapid pace.

This page was last updated on Wednesday, March 29, 2023