Speakers

Tyler Starr

Assistant Professor
Department of Biochemistry
University of Utah

Lab website: https://starr.biochem.utah.edu/

“Molecular evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and related bat coronaviruses”

We study molecular evolution at the host-virus interface, where specific protein-protein interactions drive rapid evolution of viral surface proteins, the host receptors that they bind, and the antibodies that inhibit these interactions. We leverage a combination of evolutionary, biochemical, and virological approaches to connect the functional effects of amino acid mutations to their biophysical origins and evolutionary consequences. Our basic studies of protein evolution shed light on important phenotypes in virology and immunity, from viral zoonosis to the development of broadly protective antibodies. We are building off current projects on SARS-CoV-2 and HIV to develop a broad research program studying diverse emerging viruses of public health interest.

Louise H. Moncla

Assistant Professor of Pathobiology
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of Pennsylvania

“Phylodynamic approaches for reconstructing highly pathogenic avian influenza evolution and transmission”

In the Moncla lab, we are interested in how viruses emerge in human populations, and transmit between them. We draw on tools from phylodynamics, virology, and population genetics to understand how viruses evolve within individuals, between populations, and across continents. The ultimate goal of our work is to better understand viral evolution and transmission so that we can prevent new outbreaks from occurring and mitigate the toll of endemic viral transmission. Although our lab primarily uses computational methods, we also generate new genomic data and draw on tools from basic virology to validate our computational findings.

Michael Letko

Assistant Professor
Paul G. Allen School for Global Health
Washington State University

Lab website: Laboratory of Functional Viromics

“Looking for preemergent threats with functional viromics”

Dr. Michael Letko is a molecular virologist studying the mechanisms underlying viral zoonosis. Dr. Letko received his PhD. from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York where he completed his thesis on viral-host co-evolution in lentiviruses and restriction factors. During his post-doctoral fellowship at the NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory campus in Montana, Dr. Letko gained an appreciation for bat-borne emerging infectious diseases and focused his research primarily on coronaviruses. Today, Dr. Letko’s laboratory of functional viromics combines synthetic biology and molecular engineering to assess if and how uncharacterized viruses from the ever-growing virome can infect human cells. His lab is building new tools to explore and study a range of emerging viruses from orthohantavirus to coronavirus across a wide breadth of host reservoir species and in vitro model systems.

Sophie Lockwood

PhD Student
Brook Lab, Department of Ecology and Evolution
University of Chicago

“Leveraging within-host models to understand patterns in viral virulence and shedding”

Sophie is a PhD student in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago where she is interested in combining computational and field biology to understand the transmission dynamics of zoonotic viruses. She holds a MSPH from Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and a BS from Georgetown University and has previously worked on projects exploring the intersections between climate change and health and in outbreak response and science policy with local and federal government.