VZV, which causes chicken pox and shingles, is another example of a herpesvirus that remains latent in ganglia. Throughout my career, I have been involved in basic science. While the studies in the laboratory may provide information for development of therapeutics, we do not directly deal with the clinical environment. My laboratory has been focusing on a particular transcription factor called C1 to determine the role of this protein in viral replication and reactivation from the latent state. Recently, we have concluded a study that demonstrates that this particular factor may be the critical switch controller to initiate viral reactivation from latency.
Proteolytic processing is an important regulatory mechanism for many basic biologic processes.
For example, many viruses require proteases to assemble. We have been developing a genetic system for the isolation of genes that encode specific proteases. One significant implication of this work has been to apply this system to the selection of drug-resistant protease mutants. In the clinical population, HIV protease inhibitors are important therapeutics. However, drug-resistant viruses are becoming a problem.