The mission of our laboratory is to improve human health by developing new tools to combat a very serious pathogen, human cytomegalovirus. We are approaching this problem through two avenues: (i) understanding the basic mechanisms of herpesvirus genome replication and maturation, with an aim toward development of novel antiviral drugs; and (ii) exploring novel approaches to vaccine design with a focus on designing rational modifications to an existing live attenuated vaccine strain and identification of novel targets for neutralizing antibodies.
