Graduate Programs in the Life Sciences

Research Focus

• Generally spoken, the research interests of my laboratory focus on the interaction between the animal herpesviruses Equine Herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) and Marek's disease virus (MDV) in chickens and the host cell or organism, respectively
• Unravel the function of proteins of distinct subviral components in the life cycle of herpesviruses
• Role of viral envelope (glyco)proteins as well as the tegument proteins in the early entry steps of virus infection and in the egress of newly synthesized virions from infected cells
• Assessing the role of individual open reading frames in the viruses' life cycles primarily by constructing and analyzing virus mutants
• Analysis of numerous EHV-1 and MDV mutants revealed that the two closely related viruses express similar sets of envelope and tegument (glyco)proteins
• Identifying genomic regions of EHV-1 and MDV, which are responsible for virulence
• Develop and improve vaccines and vaccine regimens against infections with the two pathogens

• Develop EHV-1 into a universal vector for immunization and gene therapy, because we have recently discovered that EHV-1 can efficiently enter primary cells of bovine, porcine and -most importantly - human origin. In addition, EHV-1 does not induce long-lasting immunity, and pre-exisiting antibodies in the human population have not been detected