Paul Bieniasz, Ph.D., a pioneer in the study of retroviruses, will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, March 9.
His lecture, “Intrinsic Cellular Defenses against Retroviral Attack,” will begin at 4 p.m. in 208 Light Hall. It is sponsored by the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology.
Bieniasz is Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Retrovirology at The Rockefeller University, and he is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The Bieniasz group focuses on the molecular biology of retroviruses, with an emphasis on the human and primate immunodeficiency viruses, including HIV. Bieniasz and his colleagues have discovered several new intrinsic host defenses that inhibit retrovirus replication and may offer new therapeutic opportunities.
Bieniasz and his team, which is affiliated with the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, are also working to develop more useful animal models of AIDS virus infection in monkeys and mice.
Bieniasz has received the Elizabeth Glaser Scientist Award, the Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award and the K.T. Jeang Retrovirology Prize.
For a complete schedule of the Flexner Discovery Lecture series and archived video of previous lectures, go to www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/discoveryseries.
