Allison Didychuk
Yale University, CT·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Herpesviruses infect most people for life. They can cause birth defects in newborns and serious disease in people with weakened immune systems.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Biochemistry
Biophysics
- Topics
herpesvirus
Kaposi's sarcoma
viral genome packaging
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Determine the function of an essential but poorly understood herpesvirus packaging factor using proteomics and microscopy, and develop deep mutational scanning (testing many mutations at once) for herpesviral proteins.
- Determine the structure of the KSHV terminase, the molecular motor that pumps the viral genome into the newly formed capsid.
- Rebuild the essential KSHV packaging machinery from purified parts to create an in vitro packaging assay that tracks genome packaging in a test tube.
- Use the in vitro packaging assay to screen for new antivirals and to define how existing drugs that target the packaging machinery work.
More about the research
Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) causes Kaposi's sarcoma and other cancers and is especially common in sub-Saharan Africa. No herpesvirus can be cured. Most antiviral drugs block just one viral step, which lets resistance mutations arise. A recently developed drug blocks genome packaging, the step where the virus stuffs its DNA into its protein shell. This suggests packaging is a promising new drug target.
Why it matters
No herpesvirus can be cured, and current drugs can lose effectiveness through resistance. Understanding the genome packaging machinery, and having an in vitro assay to screen compounds, could reveal new antiviral targets and explain how existing packaging inhibitors act. This could aid treatment for newborns, immunocompromised patients and people at risk of KSHV-related cancers.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Neelam Sharma-Walia
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, IL·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how KSHV infection turns up the host protein nucleolin and whether nucleolin is needed to keep the virus in its quiet latent state, studying infected endothelial cells and primary effusion lymphoma cells.
David Morgens
Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-Shreveport, LA·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Identify mutations in KSHV's DNA replication proteins that block late gene expression but still allow viral DNA copying, using a high-throughput method for making and testing many viral mutants.
Bernadett Papp
University of Florida, FL·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how short-chain fatty acids, small molecules released by oral bacteria, increase protein levels of stress response-related host transcription factors in oral epithelial cells, and how those factors promote KSHV infection.
The school
Yale University: 73 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 438 research doctorates a year.
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