Ming Luo

Biography

Ming Luo works on structures of viruses by employing X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM image reconstruction. His primary studies focus on RNA viruses and HBV. He discovered that the nucleocapsid of negative strand RNA viruses sequestered the genomic RNA by polymerization of a capsid protein. During viral RNA synthesis, the nucleocapsid is used as the template in coordination with the viral polymerase. With his knowledge of virus structure, he has been involved in design of novel antiviral drugs and vaccines. His work resulted in a FDA-approved flu drug. For this study, he combines the proteins from influenza virus and HBV to generate a preS VLP that is highly immunogenic. Further development of preS VLP prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines is in progress.

Research Interest

RNA viruses