Adolfo García-Sastre
Professor, Department of Microbiology
Fischberg Chair and Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases
Co-Director, Emerging Pathogens Institute
Dr. García-Sastre is Professor in the Department of Microbiology
and Co-Director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at Mount Sinai School
of Medicine in New York. He is also Principal Investigator for the Center
for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis (CRIP), one of six NIAID Centers
of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS). Together
with Charlie Rice, he is the leader of the basic research component on
Viral Therapeutics and Pathogenesis of the North East Biodefense Center
proposal, which was funded by NIAID and involves the collaboration of
more than 20 academic institutions in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.
For the past 15 years, his research interest has been focused on the molecular
biology of influenza viruses and several other negative strand RNA viruses.
During his postdoctoral training in the early 1990s, he developed for
the first time, novel strategies for expression of foreign antigens by
a negative strand RNA virus, influenza virus. He has made major contributions
to the influenza virus field, including 1) the development of reverse
genetics techniques allowing the generation of recombinant influenza viruses
from plasmid DNA (studies in collaboration with Dr. Palese); 2) the generation
and evaluation of influenza virus vectors as potential vaccine candidates
against different infectious diseases, including malaria and AIDS; 3)
the identification of the biological role of the non structural protein
NS1 of influenza virus during infection: the inhibition of the type I
interferon (IFN) system; and 4) the reconstruction and characterization
of the extinct pandemic influenza virus of 1918. His studies provided
the first description and molecular analysis of a viral-encoded IFN antagonist
among negative strand RNA viruses. These studies led to the generation
of attenuated influenza viruses containing defined mutations in their
IFN antagonist protein that might prove to be optimal live vaccines against
influenza. His research has resulted in more than 100 scientific publications
and reviews. He was among the first members of the Vaccine Study Section
of the NIH. In addition, he is an editor for Journal of Experimental
Medicine and PLoS Pathogens and a member of the Editorial
Board of Journal of Virology, Virology, Journal
of General Virology and Virus Research. He has been a co-organizer
of the international course on Viral Vectors (2001), held in Heidelberg,
Germany, sponsored by Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS),
and of the first Research Conference on Orthomyxoviruses in 2001, held
in Teixel, The Netherlands, sponsored by the European Scientific Working
Group on Influenza (ESWI). |
