About the Program

Virology at Cornell is carried out by faculty in various departments across the university, including Veterinary Microbiology and Immunology, Clinical Sciences, Plant Pathology, and the Boyce Thompson Institute and the program is also a part of the campus-wide umbrella program in Infection and Pathobiology. The faculty involved are listed under the Faculty link on this page.

Graduate-level training in this program is supported in part by a training grant from the National Institutes of Health.

study in costa rica

embo lecture course:

Virus-Host: Partners in Pathogenicity

This course will focus on recent progress made in examining the interplay between some well-studied plant and animal viruses and their hosts.Click here for more information. Deadline extended to October 30th, 2009.

Looking Back

International Herpesvirus Workshop

July 25 – 31st, 2009

Joel Baines was the resident host for the 34th International Herpesvirus Workshop, which was held on the Cornell campus from July 25 – 31st, 2009. For details, click here.

Annual Virology Retreat

Cayuga Nature Center was the site of the annual Cornell virology retreat on September 19, 2008 from
1:30p - 9p. Click here for details.

Related Programs

There are several other programs concerned with Infectious Diseases at Cornell.

Ecology and Evolution of Infection and Diseases

Infection and Pathobiology

 

new publications

GP64, the major envelope glycoprotein of Autographa californica Multicapsid Nucleopolyhedrovirus budded virion, is important for host cell receptor binding and mediates low-pH triggered membrane fusion during entry by endocytosis. By substituting a variety of GP64 TM domain mutations of various lengths and amino acid sequences, Zhaofei Li and Gary Blissard suggest that specific features and amino acid sequences, particularly the length of the hydrophobic TM domain, play critical roles in membrane anchoring, membrane fusion, virion budding, and virus infectivity. [abstract]

Older, larger males have the advantage when it comes to mating in the wild, as shown by Alongkot Ponlawat and Laura Harrington in their study of male mating success of the Dengue vector mosquito, Aedes aegypti. They also found that, in field settings, larger females successfully mated with males more often than smaller females. [abstract]

VP22 is one of the most abundant proteins of the herpes simplex virus 1 tegument. VP22 promotes protein synthesis at late times in infection. Carol Duffy, Ekaette Mbong and Joel Baines have shown that, in the absence of VP22, protein synthesis of most viral proteins decreases dramatically, while protein stability is not affected. The presence of VP22 was required for optimal synthesis of late viral proteins gE and gD, and the immediate-early protein ICPO. VP22 is also required for the accumulation of mRNA early in infection, suggesting that it may play separate roles in enhancing the accumulation of viral proteins and mRNAs. [abstract]

Andrew Regan, Rebecca Cohen and Gary Whittaker have been studying the aberrant modulation of the feline immune system in the case of Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). The Feline Infectious Peritonitis virus (FIPV), caused by systemic infection with a feline coronovirus (FCoV), results in the invariably fatal disease Feline infectious peritonitis. When blood-derived feline mononuclear cells purified from multiple SPF cats are infected by some FIPV strains, the p38 MAPK pathway is rapidly activated, causing the production of the pro-inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin-1 beta. This activation can be inhibited by pyridinyl imidazole inhibitors SB 203580 and SC 409 in a dose-dependent manner. [abstract]