Molecular interactions between the transcriptional machinery of influenza virus and the host cell

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The aim of our research is to understand how influenza virus, a major public health threat that can cause devastating pandemics, replicates in the human body. This is critical for the development of drugs and vaccines to prevent future pandemics.The life cycle of the influenza virus begins when individual virus particles enter the cell lining of the respiratory tract in the human body. Inside the cells the genetic material of the virus is copied by a viral enzyme, the RNA polymerase. The new copies of the genetic information are then used to build new virus particles which are released from the cells to complete the life cycle.The principal focus of our studies is to understand how the RNA polymerase is synthesized, transported and assembled in cells and which cellular components interact with it to regulate its activity. We have already discovered several of these interacting factors and now we are working to gain a more detailed understanding of the effects that these interactions have on viral replication and on the host cell. We are hoping that a better understanding of these processes will lead to the design of specific antiviral drugs that inhibit the RNA polymerase and thus viral replication.