Award
National Institute of General Medical Sciences 11333785
Virus breathing and assembly–disassembly transitions in host entry
Recipient
Pennsylvania State University, The
Award Amount
$387,783.00
Ceiling
$387,783.00
Awarded
May 11, 2026
Identifier
11333785
This NIH grant supports research to understand how viruses disassemble upon host cell entry, using advanced structural and biochemical methods to study virus dynamics and genome release, aiming to advance therapeutic discovery.
Description
The critical first steps in an infectious virus’ lifecycle which include receptor recognition and disassembly upon contact, are poorly understood. Our proposed research program will determine the steps for how intact virus particles precisely disassemble upon interactions with host cell receptors, to release the viral genome inside the human host cell. This will be achieved by monitoring virus dynamics in multiple icosahedral model viruses through integrative structural mass spectrometry, cryo-electron microscopy, biophysical and RNA chemistry approaches.