Maya Shmulevitz

Biography

Associate Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology, University of Alberta

Research Interest

What makes a virus infect one cell but not another? We have come to appreciate that a multitude of cellular processes (i.e. receptor expression, cytoskeletal rearrangement, nuclear import, apoptosis, etc.) can impact the replication proficiency of specific viruses. At the same time, viruses evolve extravagant strategies to exploit the host's resources. But how do viral genes and cellular events that vary among virus variants and specific cell types contribute to whether a cell can support efficient virus replication? Several viruses specifically replicate in cancer cells, while being relatively incapable of replicating in normal cells. These oncolytic viruses are being explored as cancer therapeutics in a variety of mouse models and human trials. In addition to their therapeutic potential, oncolytic viruses provide great model systems to study determinants of host specificity and define new molecular characteristics of cancer. Mammalian orthoreovirus 3 (reovirus) is a non-pathogenic, non-enveloped double-stranded RNA virus that inherently targets Ras-transformed cells (EMBO J. 1998, 17:3351). Using both modern and traditional molecular virology techniques, research in our laboratory is focused on understanding how specific viral and host factors can promote the efficiency of virus replication in cancer cells.