Ashner Prize
OLD VIRUS, NEW TRICKS - LESSONS FROM STUDYING THE EARLY EVENT IN THE SV40 LIFE CYCLE

Identifying the host receptors engaged by viruses (and bacteria) during the first stage of infection remains a major probelm in microbiology. In the first part of the talk I`ll present the discovery of a phenomenon we termed “ligand mimicry” which enables pathogens to bind to host receptors. Based on this knowledge, we developed a simple strategy for identifying unknown pathogen-receptor interactions that relies on structural bioinformatics. We`ve used this to predict and discover hitherto unkown celluar receptors engaged by SV40.

In the second part of the talk, I`ll describe a novel role for p53 in deciding the fate of the infected cell, "choosing" between abortive and productive infection.