Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Honorary Societies and Awards

2014 Loeffler-Frosch Medal by the Society of Virology of Germany, Austria and Switzerland

2012 Member, National Academy of Sciences

2012 Robert-Koch Medal in Gold by the Robert-Koch Stiftung, Berlin, Germany

The 2010 Beijerinck Price in Virology, by The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2008)

Lifetime Achievement Award, The Research Foundation of the State University of New York, April 2008

Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York at Stony Brook (2002)

Highly Cited Researcher 1980 –present (ISIHighlyCited.com)

Fellow, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina von 1652 (1998)

Fellow, American Academy for Microbiology (1994)

Alexander von Humboldt-Forschungspreis (1996)

Research

We are excited about viruses, viewing them either as chemical entities whose intriguing facility of proliferation is fascinating, or as horrifying infectious agents causing appalling diseases in their host. Accordingly, research in our laboratory can roughly be divided into two general topics: viral replication and genetics at the cellular level, and mechanisms of viral pathogenensis in a host organism.

Our research focuses on RNA viruses, particularly picornaviruses, whose prototype is poliovirus. Picornaviruses, are estimated to infect 6 billion humans per year, cause a bewildering array of disease syndromes (paralysis, meningitis, heart disease, hepatitis, common cold, etc).