Alistair McGregor is a tenured professor at Texas A&M University Health Science Center. His research is on cytomegalovirus with a specific focus on congenital disease and the use of the guinea pig as the only small animal model for congenital CMV (cCMV). Research covers a broad spectrum of areas including molecular virology, cell tropism, pathogenicity, immunology and development of intervention strategies against cCMV. The McGregor lab has demonstrated functional conservation of virus cell receptors, entry pathways and viral glycoproteins between HCMV and guinea pig CMV (GPCMV). Various vaccine strategies explored against cCMV include viral vector platforms, mRNA vaccines, attenuated CMV mutants and DISC vaccines with strategies targeting homolog HCMV viral glycoprotein complexes and T cell antigens. Recent studies with novel clinical GPCMV strains have identified key antigens for cross strain vaccine protection against cCMV in this preclinical model. Dr. McGregor obtained his PhD in Virology from the University of Glasgow, Institute of Virology (Scotland, UK). He began his CMV research when he moved to the US in the late 1990s with research at Children’s Research Hospital/ University of Cincinnati and UC, Berkeley prior to becoming an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. He moved to Texas A&M University as an associate professor in 2012. Research in the McGregor lab is funded by grants form NIH (NIAID and NICHD).

Bernard Heymann is a retired scientist from the NIH in Bethesda. He contributed to the development of computational processing for cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) through his software package called Bsoft. He was also involved in  many structural studies of viruses and various proteins using cryoEM. Amongst these were the first 3D visualization of the herpes simplex type 1 (HSV1) virion by cryo-electron tomography, the time-resolved cryoEM of the HSV1 capsid maturation, and the primary enveloped virion of HSV1. In a recent study he proposed a triplex-centric model for the assembly of the HSV1 procapsid based on the many available herpesvirus capsid structures solved by cryoEM. As an outflow of his computational efforts in cryoEM, he is currently studying the fundamental physics of image formation  in the electron microscope to improve 3D reconstruction in cryoEM.

Claire Birkenheuer obtained her PhD from Colorado State University in 2015.  During her PhD research, she investigated the transcriptional underpinnings of virus-induced oncogenesis in walleye fish.  She then moved on to her first postdoctoral research position in Joel Baines’s lab at Louisiana State University and at Cornell University, where she investigated viral and cellular transcription during HSV-1 infection during modeled epithelial and neuronal infection.  Currently, she is in her second postdoctoral position at Cornell University, where she is investigating virus-induced pathogenesis using spatial transcriptomics.

Prof. Clinton Jones labs research is focused on two neurotropic herpesviruses, herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) and bovine herpesvirus 1 (BoHV-1). The topics they were examining include: 1) reactivation from latency of neurotropic herpesviruses, 2) identification of cellular genes the trigger reactivation from latency, 3) regulation of viral gene expression during reactivation from latency, 4) viral regulated signal transduction and programmed cell death, and 5) characterization of viral genes expressed during latency. Prof. Jones lab is funded by grants from NIH (NINDS and NIAID), and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).

Cristina Tommasi is a senior research fellow at University College London (UCL) working with Prof Judith Breuer. Dr Tommasi earned her Ph.D. in Cell Biology at UCL where she studied skin viral infections, before pursuing a postdoctoral position at Stanford University, where she investigated the cell biology of a type of skin cancer called cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. Dr Tommasi research interests are focused on understanding the biology of virus–host interactions in viral infections of skin.

Deepak Shukla, Ph.D., holds the Marion H. Schenk Esq. Professorship in Ophthalmology and serves as the Vice Chairman for Research at the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. He is also a UIC Distinguished Professor and a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology. Professor Shukla has earned significant recognition in his field, having been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM), fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and receiving honors from the American Herpes Foundation for discovering the HSV-1 entry receptor. His specialization in Ocular Herpes Infections encompasses in-depth research into their mechanisms, neurological, and neuropsychiatric connections, and interventions. His extensive work has been published in 200 research papers, with his contributions featured in high-impact journals such as Cell, PNAS, Science Translational Medicine, Science Advances, Angewandte Chemie, and Nature Communications. A well-cited scholar, Professor Shukla has accumulated about 25,000 citations on Google Scholar. His research has garnered attention from national institutions such as NIH, NEI, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and has reached a wider audience through features in Newsweek, The Atlantic, Daily Mail, and Chicago Magazine and TV interviews in WGN News. Dr. Shukla has been a key figure at UIC, being named UIC Distinguished Researcher of the Year in 2018, University of Illinois Scholar in 2023, and UIC Inventor of the Year in 2024, and UIC Distinguished Professor in 2025, while serving on various committees.

Since the 1980's our lab has taken molecular approaches to two herpesviruses, herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) and human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), in part to understand processes that distinguish viral functions from cellular functions, which can be exploited to permit antiviral therapy. The foci the last ten years have been 1) regulation of gene expression relevant to virus latency, a fascinating and clinically important topic, 2) functional dissection of DNA replication proteins, 3) nuclear egress, and 4) antiviral drug targets, drug mechanisms, and drug resistance, with emphasis on targeting proteins involved in nuclear egress. Current collaborating labs include David Knipe's (HMS), David Leib's (Dartmouth), and Dongli Pan (Zheijiang) for studies of gene regulation relevant to latency, Hari Arthanari's (Dana-Farber/HMS) for studies of nuclear egress, and Jonathan Abraham's (HMS) and Felicia Goodrum's (Dartmouth) for studies of DNA replication proteins/antiviral drug targets and drug mechanisms/resistance.

Dr. Heldwein’s laboratory aims to elucidate the mechanisms by which herpesviruses enter and egress host cells, by harnessing the combined power of biophysics, cell biology, structural biology, virology, and biochemistry. An in-depth knowledge of how herpesviruses remodel host membranes and hijack intracellular trafficking machinery is essential for filling major gaps in our understanding of the biology of herpesviruses and for finding ways to harness their abilities for therapeutic applications. Dr. Heldwein is currently American Cancer Society (Massachusetts Division) Professor of Molecular Biology and HHMI Faculty Scholar in the Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at the Tufts University School of Medicine. She has received multiple awards for her research, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Pew Biomedical Scholar Award, the Burroughs Welcome Foundation Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award, and the HHMI Faculty Scholar Award. In 2019, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

My interest in viruses started with my PhD at Cambridge University, UK, where I studied the Influenza A virus polymerase (with Paul Digard). After a first PDRA position at St George’s Hospital Medical School researching innate immune evasion of paramyxoviruses (with Steve Goodbourn), I returned to Cambridge University, Department of Medicine. My initial herpesvirus interest was with human cytomegalovirus protein UL144. I analyzed the possibility of UL144 having TNF-receptor properties with John Sinclair and Antonio Alcami. We found that while UL144 did not directly bind TNF, it did modulate signaling. I then moved to working on HCMV latency with John Sinclair and Mark Wills over three successive UK Medical Research Council program grants. During that time, we identified numerous viral and cellular changes that occur in the latently infected cell using cell lines, primary cells and naturally latent cell systems and, over the course of those grants, I became a Senior Research Associate and then an Associate PI. In 2023, I became an Associate Professor in an independent lectureship position in the Department of Pathology at Cambridge University. My group continues to analyze the molecular mechanisms of HCMV latency (in collaboration with Mark Wills and Matthew Reeves) as well as using the knowledge gained from our own laboratory and others over 20+ years to investigate the possibility of targeting the latent phase of HCMV therapeutically. These include ‘shock and kill’ as well as ‘lock and block’ strategies (in collaboration with Michael Nevels) and direct targeting of viral proteins, such as US28 (in collaboration with John Sinclair, Thomas Kledal and Martine Smit). We are also looking to understand HCMV in ‘at risk’ patient cohort settings such as kidney transplants (in collaboration with Sarah Hosgood and Michael Nicolson) and placental infection (with Naomi McGovern)

Dr. Georges Herbein received his M.D. in 1991 and his Ph.D. in 1993 from the University of Strasbourg. He spent two years at the Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University and then joined as a postdoctoral fellow the Picower Institute for Medical Research, New York, in 1995. At the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, he was named research assistant professor in 1997. In 2001, he returned to Europe to the University of Franche-Comté and Besançon University Hospital, France, where he became professor of medical virology and the director of the EPILAB Virology Laboratory for more than twenty years. Since 2024 he is the head of the Apex Center for Medical Research, Besançon, France. His laboratory studies the role of viruses such as HIV in apoptosis and human cytomegalovirus in oncogenesis. Recently, his research group has reported a direct link between some clinical HCMV strains and glioblastoma, breast cancer, ovarian cancer and prostate cancer. The role of oncoviruses and HCMV in the appearance of polyploid giant cancer cells is also investigated. He has published more than 150 articles on these and related topics, and has received the 12th World AIDS Conference Award, the American Foundation for AIDS Research Award, the Joachim Kuhlmann AIDS Award and the Clinical Science Award of the German Society for Immunotherapy among other honors for his research.

Irene Goerzer, Ph.D., is an associate professor and group leader at the Center for Virology at the Medical University of Vienna. Her research focuses on the diversity of viruses as they occur in humans and how this diversity affects infectivity, persistence, and cell tropism. Through her research group, she seeks to understand the dynamics and evolution of viral populations within the host, the potential associations between genetic features and clinical outcomes, and the impact of polymorphic genetic regions on viral properties. Her team’s research on human cytomegalovirus explores the behavior of mixed-strain populations in the immunocompetent and immunosuppressed hosts, as well as the intra-host emergence of modified strains due to single-nucleotide variants and/or recombination, and to evaluate the functional impact of the highly polymorphic core fusion envelope genes on cell entry and tropism.

Prof. Dr. med. Lars Dolken is Professor of Virology and Director of the Institute for Virology at Hannover Medical School (MHH). He studied medicine at the University of Greifswald and the University of Otago in New Zealand and completed his medical doctorate in 2005. From 2005 to 2011, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Max von Pettenkofer Institute in Munich, during which he also specialized in microbiology, virology, and infection epidemiology in 2011. From 2011 to 2015, he worked as a Medical Research Council Clinical Scientist Fellow and honorary consultant in Cambridge, UK, focusing on transfusion and transplantation virology. Between 2015 and 2024, he served as Professor of Virology and Director of the Institute for Virology and Immunology at the University of Würzburg, before moving to Hannover to lead the Institute for Virology. His research focuses on system biology of herpesvirus infections, virus-host interactions, the regulation of cellular and viral gene expression, unconventional viral gene products, and the molecular mechanisms controlling herpesvirus latency and reactivation.

Lori Frappier, Ph.D., is a Professor of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, where she serves as Associate Chair & Graduate Coordinator. Dr. Frappier directs a research program that identifies the functions and mechanisms of action of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) proteins. In particular, her laboratory uses proteomics methods to uncover EBV-host interactions and host responses to EBV infection. These studies have led to important discoveries on replication and segregation of latent EBV genomes, destabilization of p53, interference with DNA damage responses, and inactivation of antiviral proteins, together resulting in a better understanding of the viral-host interplay enabling EBV persistence.

Dr. Luis M Schang is a tenured professor at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine. As a molecular virologist, his research focuses on elucidating the interactions between viruses and host cells that govern infection outcomes. His work particularly examines the interface among viruses, epigenetic regulation, and cell-cycle processes in biologically relevant cell types, as well as their implications for pathogenesis. Dr. Schang’s laboratory identifies small molecules capable of inhibiting the infectivity or replication of diverse viruses and utilizes these compounds as probes to explore shared mechanisms across unrelated viruses. This approach advances fundamental understanding in molecular virology while discovering bioactive small molecule scaffolds with potential as antiviral agents.
The group has applied this methodology to study the epigenetic regulation of replication and pathogenesis of herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), along with the entry, egress, and spread of various DNA and RNA viruses. Their research has demonstrated that chromatin dynamics influence the transcriptional competence of HSV-1, with unique chromatin features partially attributable to enrichment of the highly dynamic histone H2A variant H2A.B and to cell-type specific chromatin remodeling complexes. Recently, Dr. Schang’s team established a new latency model for HSV-1 and HSV-2 utilizing human neurons differentiated from neural progenitor cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, model which does not require antivirals, antibodies, or viral mutations. This model is currently being employed to investigate the intrinsic silencing mechanisms of HSV-1 and HSV-2 in human neurons.
Throughout his career, Dr. Schang has mentored 66 trainees, ranging from high school students to senior research associates, who have advanced to careers as professors, physicians, veterinarians, business consultants, engineers, dentists, professionals in antiviral development for industry, and numerous other medically related fields.

The research of Research Director Maija Vihinen-Ranta’s group focuses on the interaction between viruses, herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), and parvoviruses, and the nucleus. HSV-1 infection leads to the formation and expansion of the membraneless viral replication compartment for viral DNA replication and progeny capsid assembly. The reorganization of the host chromatin toward the nuclear periphery accompanies this. We wish to understand the mechanisms of HSV-1-induced changes in nuclear structures, including chromatin and nucleoli, and the dynamics of viral capsids in the nucleus. We have, for example, shown that capsid transport through the chromatin is the rate-limiting step for the nuclear exit of capsids and that the restrictive chromatin barrier becomes more permissive at late infection, allowing herpesvirus capsid diffusion towards the nuclear envelope. We are also interested in infection-induced changes in nuclear biomechanics and the structure and function of mitochondria. Our parvovirus studies elucidate infection-induced nucleolar changes, intranuclear mobility, and nuclear export of parvovirus capsids. Grants from the EU Horizon project, the Academy of Finland, and the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation have funded the lab.

Martine Aubert is a Principal Staff Scientist in Dr. Keith R. Jerome’s laboratory. After obtained her Ph.D degree in Bacterial Genetics studying Streptomyces ambofaciens genome instability at the University of Nancy-1, France, she joined the laboratory of Dr. John A. Blaho at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, NY for a postdoctoral fellowship in Virology, studying HSV-1 inhibition of apoptosis. She then joined the laboratory of Dr. Keith R. Jerome at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, WA as a Staff Scientist to study virus-host interactions during HSV lytic replication. Currently, she is leading the efforts on the development and evaluation of gene editing therapies targeting latent viral genomes as a novel curative therapy for HSV disease.

Matthew Gromisch, MSc, is a PhD student in the lab of Dr. Betsy Herold. He received his BSc from George Washington University in 2017 and then worked as a research technician at Boston University School of Medicine studying targeted antibody therapies against neutrophils in the context of ARDS and pancreatic cancer. He transitioned to the Herold lab in 2020 as a research technician and has since joined the lab as a graduate student. His thesis research focuses on understanding the mechanism in which a single-cycle glycoprotein D deletion virus, ΔgD-2, provides protection against HSV-1 & HSV-2. More specifically, he seeks to characterize the role of TNFRSF14 in promoting the generation of protective ADCC antibody responses and mediation of those antibodies by neutrophils.

Prof. Shamay’s research interests are to study the functional interactions between viral proteins and the cellular machinery, which control both the viral life cycle and tumorigenesis. He received his BSc degree from Tel Aviv University and his PhD in Molecular Genetics from the Weizmann Institute of Science. After postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, he established his lab at Bar-Ilan University, where he is now an Associate Professor in the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine. His studies are focused on the epigenetic changes viruses impose on the infected cell that lead to the development of cancer.

Micah Luftig, Ph.D., is a Professor and Vice Chair of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University School of Medicine. He has been studying herpesviruses for nearly thirty years. He earned his B.S. in Microbiology from Louisiana State University, where he studied KSHV glycoproteins under Dr. Gus Kousoulas, followed by a fellowship at the CDC with Dr. Phil Pellet. He obtained his Ph.D. in Virology from Harvard Medical School under Dr. Elliott Kieff, studying Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) oncogenesis. After postdoctoral research in structural virology with Dr. Andrea Carfi at IRBM in Italy, he joined Duke as an Assistant Professor in 2007, where his lab focuses on EBV-driven B-cell transformation, virus-host interactions, and mechanisms of lymphomagenesis. The lab uses cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary and highly collaborative approaches to characterize the temporal dynamics and single cell heterogeneity of EBV infection. The goals of the lab include discovering fundamental molecular circuits underlying transcriptional control, viral manipulation of host signaling pathways, and metabolic regulation that collectively influence infected cell fate decisions. By understanding the nature of viral control of infected host cells, the Luftig lab is well positioned to discover vulnerabilities in EBV-associated diseases to characterize new therapeutic interventions in cell-based and pre-clinical animal models.

Dr. Santoso studied Pharmaceutical Sciences at Purdue University, USA and graduated in 2005. She then pursued research by joining the group of Prof. William Guggino at Johns Hopkins University to study genetic kidney diseases and received her PhD degree in 2011. She joined Dr. Raju Kucherlapati’s group at Brigham and Women’s hospital for a postdoctoral fellowship, where she was involved in TCGA consortium. She obtained the position of an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University in 2021. Her research has been funded by US Army, NCI, NIDCR. She has published more than 30 research articles in journals such as Nature, Cell, Science Advances, Nucleic Acid Research, PLos Pathogens.

Paul M. Lieberman, PhD is the Hilary Koprowski Professor and Director of the Center for Advanced Therapeutics at the Wistar Institute, and Program Leader for the Genome Regulation and Cell Signaling Program at the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center of the Wistar Institute.  Dr. Lieberman received his BA from Cornell University and PhD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Pharmacology/Virology.  Dr. Lieberman’s research focuses on oncogenic herpesvirus persistence and genome maintenance in cancer.  The Lieberman lab is developing clinical stage small molecule inhibitors to block Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) latent infection and persistence to treat EBV-associated nasopharyngeal carcinoma, gastric carcinoma and lymphomas.  Dr. Lieberman is an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Selene Ingusci was appointed Research Instructor at the University of Pittsburgh, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, in January 2023. Her expertise lies in molecular biology, with a focus on HSV vector engineering and manufacturing. She earned her BS, MS, and PhD from the University of Ferrara (Italy), where she built a foundation in HSV-mediated gene therapy.
Dr. Ingusci’s current research advances rdHSV vectors for neurodegenerative and muscular disorders. She identified HSV genomic loci and regulatory designs that support long-term transgene expression in brain and muscle tissues for up to one year, without cytotoxicity or inflammation. Leveraging HSV’s large genetic capacity, she also demonstrated its ability to deliver multiple transgenes under independent transcriptional control across cell types. These studies revealed how noncoding genomic elements regulate cell-type-specific transcription and how to modulate the rdHSV epigenetic landscape to optimize expression. Her work continues to expand the potential of HSV-based gene therapy by enhancing vector stability, tissue specificity, and long-term efficacy.

To reveal molecular mechanisms that underpin virus replication and pathogenesis, the Oliver lab employs innovative research strategies by combining sophisticated bioimaging modalities, including cryogenic electron microscopy approaches, with multi-omic technologies and functional assays.  We scrutinize how viruses like herpesviruses manipulate host cells, utilizing structural biology to capture viral machinery in detail and combine it with multi-omics to decode host-pathogen interactions.  Our state-of-the-art approaches are designed to reveal unconceived therapeutic targets by advancing knowledge of viral strategies to subvert host molecular controls of replication to inform antiviral development.

Sumita Bhaduri-McIntosh, MD, PhD, is a physician-scientist, Professor of Pediatrics, Director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases research, and former Chief of the Pediatric ID division at the University of Florida. She trained in medicine at B.J. Medical College (Pune, India) and earned a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology in the field of malaria from Hahnemann University (now Drexel).
After a fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Yale, she trained in virology and immunology under Dr. I. George Miller. She held faculty positions at Yale and Stony Brook before joining UF, where she is a tenured professor and Children’s Miracle Network Scholar. She also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of PLOS Pathogens.
Her research bridges virology, cancer biology, immunology, and infectious diseases, focusing on Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) interactions with B cells. She investigates EBV susceptibility to lytic activation, the transition from viral transcription to replication, and how EBV circumvents immune and anti-cancer defenses to drive B cell proliferation.

Xiangdong (Jack) Li is now working as a full professor at College of Veterinary Medicine, Yangzhou University. He received his Ph.D. degree at Kansas State University and once worked at Maryland University, Boehringer-Ingelheim, and National Research Center for Veterinary Medicine. His laboratory mainly studies the pathogenic mechanisms of pseudorabies virus variants on different animal species and rare cases of human encephalitis in China. Besides herpesvirus, his laboratory also performs epidemiology of some other porcine viral pathogens including African Swine Fever Virus, Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus, Porcine Circoviruses in China, and develop veterinary diagnostics and vaccines for these disease prevention and control. So far, he has published > 100 research papers as the first or corresponding author. Among these papers, >20 papers are related to pseudorabies virus.

Yasuko Mori, MD, PhD who is a professor of Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, worked as an ophthalmologist at Osaka University Hospital. There, she saw many patients with corneal herpes. and was involved in clinical research on HSV-1. Because she became interested in analyzing the pathogenesis of herpes virus and entered Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine to conduct basic research on herpes virus. There, she met HHV-6, which became her life's research work. She was working on HHV-6 research under Professor Koichi Yamanishi and started research on HHV-6 entry. It led to the findings of HHV-6A/B tetramer (ligand for HHV-6 receptor) and HHV-6B receptor (human CD134). She has been conducting research on elucidating the infection mechanism of HHV-6A/B.