How do viruses do it? Their genomes contain much less information than the cells that they infect, yet they are capable within a few hours of turning an infected cell into a virus producing factory. What are the mechanisms involved? How does a virus shut down the host immune response? These are the types of question my research tries to answer.
We use biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology and virological techniques to examine how viral proteins interact with each other or with host proteins. We have published structures of viral proteins using X-ray crystallography and NMR and are now using EM to study how a vaccinia virus protein destablises host proteins involved in the innate pathway.
I studied biochemistry in Liverpool and London. Since my PhD, I have worked on the biology of many viruses, especially picornaviruses and vaccinia virus. I have been an independent group leader at MFPL, now Max Perutz Labs, since the early 1990s. Recently, I have published three text books on different themes and become editor-in-chief of Archives of Virology.