The UCI Virology Graduate Training Program is part of the large, multidisciplinary Graduate Program in Cellular and Molecular Biosciences. The Virology Training Program functions as an area of study within the larger program, sharing a common core curriculum and admissions process. The Virology research focus is comprised of faculty, students, postdoctoral fellows, and laboratory staff who have common research and teaching interests in virology and related disciplines. It shares a common core curriculum with all other tracks in the CMB graduate program. The research programs of faculty participants include the study of genome replication, viral specific transcription, viral RNA processing, viral translation, viral protein processing, and assembly and transport of viral structural proteins. There are also research efforts aimed at understanding virus-host interactions that include studies of how virus gene products alter and program host functions, alteration of host regulatory molecules, growth control, cell cycle regulation, differentiation control, the role of the innate immune response, the integration specificity of viral genomes, and the subversion of host functions for virus gene expression. The viruses/viral systems being studied include murine leukemia virus, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus, retrotransposons in yeast, poliovirus and human rhinovirus, coronaviruses, papillomavirus, herpes simplex virus, Epstein-Barr virus, polyomavirus, and adenovirus.
The training program for the Virology focus includes core elective courses in viral gene expression, molecular pathogenesis of viral infections, and immunopathogenic mechanisms of disease. Students in the Virology group also participate in a seminar series sponsored by the Center for Virus Research. Seminars are generally held at noon every other Friday during the academic year. Leading national researchers are invited to present their work in different areas of virology, gene regulation, cell transformation, and a variety of topics in molecular biology and molecular genetics. Alternating with the seminars by invited outside speakers are research-in-progress seminar presentations by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the laboratories of participating faculty. These seminars provide a stimulating forum for exchanges of scientific ideas and information and for a critical analysis of data generated by the graduate students and fellows making the oral presentations.
For more information, please visit the Center for Virus Research @ UCI website.
Full Virology Faculty Listing
