Human cytomegalovirus latency, reactivation and immune control

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Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a virus which is carried without symptoms by the majority of the population. However, it can cause serious disease in infants born to mothers who acquire the infection in pregnancy and in people whose immune system is suppressed. Understanding how the virus succeeds in maintaining itself in most people without causing disease and how this relationship breaks down to cause disease should help develop better methods of treating the virus and of designing a vaccine (there is currently no vaccine available). Our research is aimed at determining (i) the mechanism by which the virus maintains silent infection (latency) in specialised cells of the immune system and the factors that reawake it and (ii) how the immune system controls the infection in normal people. In addition to advancing our understanding of HCMV in particular, this research may also lead to a better understanding of other virus infections which persist in the body, and how the human host controls them.