Viral hijacking of the host DNA damage and innate immune responses: novel disease mechanisms and therapeutic targets

Viral hijacking of the host DNA damage and innate immune responses: novel disease mechanisms and therapeutic targets

Speaker: Dr Gregory Moseley, Monash University, Melbourne. 

Host: Professor Michael Malim

Despite a limited coding capacity, RNA viruses such as rabies (RABV) and Nipah (NiV) virus can arrest potent control over host cell biology, and are often highly lethal. Central to this are multifunctional viral proteins that can modulate critical cellular processes, in addition to mediating conserved roles in replication.

My laboratory seeks to delineate these functions to understand how viruses subvert cell biology, and thereby identify new targets to develop vaccines and antivirals.

I will discuss our recent progress on Henipaviruses and lyssaviruses, including new findings on viral targeting of the nucleolus and unexpected roles in modulating the DNA-damage response to control the host cell1. I will also discuss new data on viral antagonism of immunity2, and how this is informing potential methods to block viral immune evasion for vaccine/therapeutic approaches, as well as revealing fundamental mechanisms whereby viral proteins can ‘multi-task’ in coupling immune evasion and genome replication.