Research

CVC faculty leverage past success with new partnerships, technologies, and basic science discoveries in order to achieve high-impact translational outcomes:

Schinazi Lab

The primary interest of the Schinazi lab is to design and develop novel antiviral agents with the goal of advancing promising compounds to clinical trials. The group is developing novel small molecule inhibitors for the treatment of human viral infections including HIV, herpesviruses, hepatitis B and C, as well as emerging human viruses including Monkeypox, Dengue, West Nile, Yellow Fever, Chikungunya, Ebola, Norovirus and Enteroviruses. To complement drug discovery efforts, the group excels in the phenotypic and genotypic characterization of drug-resistant virus variants with the intention of mitigating resistance selection using drug combinations. Five antiviral agents developed in the Schinazi lab have gone on to advanced clinical studies resulting in 26 NDA approvals.

Kim Lab

Baek Kim's laboratory has been working on the molecular and cellular biology of HIV-1 replication, mutagenesis, evolution and viral escape for more than two decades. They do so by employing both biochemical and virological approaches. Their recent research focuses on HIV-1 infection to nondividing myeloid cells that serve as long-living HIV-1 reservoirs, contributing to HIV-1 persistence. They have found that HIV-1 replication in nondividing target cells harbors various distinct features, compared with activated CD4+ T cells. Their research claims differences between replication in these cell types in terms of host restriction, viral replication kinetics and cell biology/signaling responses can contribute to viral evolution and pathogenesis. Also, they recently launched a new anti-HIV drug discovery program through an industry collaboration, and this drug platform, called allosteric integrase inhibitors, targets HIV-1 integrase for its unique functions during both viral maturation and HIV-1 reactivation from latently infected T cell reservoirs.

Sarafianos Lab

The Sarafianos Laboratory works towards unraveling the molecular details of how biomedically-relevant enzymes function, how they are inhibited, how they develop drug resistance and towards developing drugs that will treat human disease by novel mechanisms of action. In pursuit of these goals, they use a combination of conventional and cutting-edge research tools, including protein biochemistry, molecular biology, fluorescence imaging/microscopy, macromolecular engineering, X-ray crystallography, molecular modeling, enzymology, and high-throughput technologies. Target proteins include HIV reverse transcriptase, HIV capsid protein, Hepatitis B virus (HBV) reverse transcriptase, and HBV capsid protein. Ongoing efforts focus on various steps of HIV, SARS, Mpox, Nipah HBV, and HCV life cycles, including cell entry, uncoating, reverse transcription, nuclear entry, assembly, and host interactions towards developing novel therapeutics.

Michailidis Lab

The Michailidis research program focuses on understanding the interaction between viruses and the host using a set of biochemical, cell-based and in vivo methods. In particular, the group is interested in HBV and the development of eradication strategies that involve state-of-the-art primary hepatocyte systems and humanized liver chimeric mice. These systems expand the scope of the research beyond viral hepatitis to other liver-related diseases and fields including fatty liver disease and liver immunometabolism. In addition, they have a strong interest in antiviral mechanisms carried out by interferon-stimulated genes and other host proteins but also small molecule inhibitors in regards to mechanisms of action and resistance. In this direction their main focus has been HIV, HBV, and SARS-CoV-2. To accomplish these goals, they use medium and high-throughput genetic screens (gene overexpression and CRISPR knockout) across different cell systems and in some cases in humanized mice.