Myra Mcclure

Biography

Her work on foamy viruses, funded by the Wellcome Trust, has contributed to the understanding of these atypical retroviruses and to their development as vectors for gene therapy. The prototype foamy virus vector is currently being prepared for testing in a mouse model against a rare genetic disease, metachromatic leukodystrophy. If successful, this will bring the long-term aim of the first clinical trial of these vectors closer. Recently, her group showed that the xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus (a murine endogenous retrovirus) was not associated with either chronic fatigue syndrome or prostate cancer and that such claims were the result of laboratory contamination events. Current work on (human) endogenous retroviruses is looking at their role in HIV infection and in melanoma and, in collaboration with the Sanger Institute, the role of antibody in HIV infection.

Research Interest

HIV infection