Virology Research
Our Virology research on herpesviruses and bacteriophages could lead to breakthroughs that stop tumors and untreatable bacterial infections.
Herpesviruses and bacteriophages Virology research
Virology research plays an important role in developing vaccines, antiviral drugs and diagnostic tests for viral infections. Our Virology research team led by Darby Oldenburg, PhD, focuses on finding answers for those whose lives are changed by herpesviruses and bacteriophages.
Herpesviruses research
Like you, we want to understand how herpesviruses infections lead to autoimmune disease and cancer. We’re trying to find answers through our mutagenesis program, which provides collaborators with virus strains to better understand the role of each gene in the herpesvirus infection cycle and its latency.
Herpesvirus infections caused by Epstein Barr Virus and Kaposi’s Sarcoma Herpesvirus can lead to cancer, while infections caused by HHV-6 and EBV may play an important role in the development of autoimmune diseases.
Our goal is to help identify the molecular pathways that lead to tumors and/or autoimmune disorders so that we can find ways to prevent cancer and change people’s lives.
Bacteriophages research
Drug-resistant bacterial infections are rising, and the development of antibiotics to treat them is lagging. We’re joining other medical researchers pursuing Phage Therapy to learn whether bacteriophages have the power to treat bacterial infections.
We're curating a collection of bacteriophages against numerous bacterial pathogens and focusing our research on antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus infections that can cause limb loss or worse.
Support our Virology research
We focus on developing basic molecular research tools that can help us understand the impact of herpesvirus infections. We're also building tools to create a future in which Phage Therapy can fight resistant life-threatening bacterial infections. It's because of people like you that Gundersen Medical Foundation can support our work to find answers and make a difference.
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10
collaborators around the country using new research tools we created
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50
bacteriophages that infect Staphylococcus curated
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10
years of mentorship between our researchers and undergrad microbiology students
Virology researchers
Darby Oldenburg, PhD
(608) 775-4866
Justin Radomski
Publications
Intrinsic p53 activation restricts gammaherpesvirus driven germinal center B cell expansion during latency establishment
Published on: 2025-01-22Gammaherpesviruses are DNA tumor viruses that establish lifelong latent infections in lymphocytes. For viruses such as Epstein-Barr virus and murine gammaherpesvirus 68, this is accomplished through a viral gene-expression program that promotes cellular proliferation and differentiation, especially of germinal center B cells. Intrinsic host mechanisms that control virus-driven cellular expansion are incompletely defined. Using a small-animal model of gammaherpesvirus pathogenesis, we demonstrate...
Read moreVaccination with a Replication-Dead Murine Gammaherpesvirus Lacking Viral Pathogenesis Genes Inhibits WT Virus Infection
Published on: 2025-01-13Gammaherpesviruses are oncogenic pathogens that establish lifelong infections. There are no FDA-approved vaccines against Epstein-Barr virus or Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus. Murine gammaherpesvirus-68 (MHV68) infection of mice provides a system for investigating of gammaherpesvirus pathogenesis and testing vaccine strategies. Prime-boost vaccination with a replication-dead virus (RDV) that does not express the essential replication and transactivator protein (RTA) encoded by ORF50 (RDV-50.stop)...
Read moreVaccination with a Replication-Dead Murine Gammaherpesvirus Lacking Viral Pathogenesis Genes Inhibits WT Virus Infection
Published on: 2025-01-08Gammaherpesviruses are oncogenic pathogens that establish lifelong infections. There are no FDA-approved vaccines against Epstein-Barr virus or Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus. Murine gammaherpesvirus-68 (MHV68) infection of mice provides a system for investigating gammaherpesvirus pathogenesis and testing vaccine strategies. Prime-boost vaccination with a replication-dead virus (RDV) that does not express the essential replication and transactivator protein (RTA) encoded by ORF50 (RDV-50.stop)...
Read moreEvidence of a Protein-Coding Gene Antisense to the UL5 Gene in Bovine Herpesvirus I
Published on: 2023-10-28Bovine herpesvirus type 1 (BoHV-1) is an important agricultural pathogen that infects cattle and other ruminants worldwide. Though it was first sequenced and annotated over twenty years ago, the Cooper strain, used in this study, was sequenced as recently as 2012 and is currently said to encode 72 unique proteins. However, tandem mass spectrometry has identified several peptides produced during active infection that align with the BoHV-1 genome in unannotated regions. One of these abundant...
Read moreUracil-DNA glycosylase of murine gammaherpesvirus 68 binds cognate viral replication factors independently of its catalytic residues
Published on: 2023-09-25Herpesviruses are large double-stranded DNA viruses that encode core replication proteins and accessory factors involved in nucleotide metabolism and DNA repair. Mammalian uracil-DNA glycosylases (UNG) excise deleterious uracil residues from their genomic DNA. Each herpesvirus UNG studied to date has demonstrated conservation of the enzymatic function to excise uracil residues from DNA. We previously reported that a murine gammaherpesvirus (MHV68) with a stop codon in ORF46 (ORF46.stop) that...
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