BioE Seminar: Engineering Viruses for Gene Therapy

Abstract: Viruses are remarkably plastic entities. The virion shell, in particular can be engineered to enable novel functions. One such example is the family of Adeno-associated viruses (AAV), which are currently at the forefront of human gene therapy applications. Progress in understanding the structure, biology and immunology of different naturally occurring AAV isolates in the past decade is now being applied toward engineering new, synthetic AAV strains with favorable gene transfer profiles. This talk will provide a roadmap for manipulating virus-receptor interactions and engineering stealth viruses through structure-guided evolution.