Robert Lamb, PhD, ScD

John Evans Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Research Interests:
The laboratory of Dr. Lamb is using functional genomics and proteomics to understand the means by which the important human pathogens influenza viruses and paramyxoviruses interact with the host cell machinery at a variety of different levels. Animal viruses provide a unique tool with which to study the complex biochemical processes involved in the biosynthesis and maintenance of eukaryotic cells. Dr. Lamb selected influenza virus and the paramyxovirus SV5 for study not only because of their importance as the causative agents of major diseases but also because they provide excellent models for examining a variety of properties of integral membrane proteins. Since these proteins are the major antigenic determinants of the viruses, knowledge about their structure should enhance his lab’s understanding of how to develop new vaccines. In addition, some of the biochemical activities of the viruses are specialized to the virus, making them attractive as points of intervention in the virus life cycle to which rationally designed therapeutic agents can be developed. Several different projects are under study: (1) The mechanism by which viruses enter cells by virus-mediated membrane fusion; (2) The protein-protein interactions necessary for virus assembly; (3) The structure and function of the minimalistic influenza virus-encoded ion channel, M2, and putative channel proteins NB and CM2; (4) Endocytosis and degradations signals in viral glycoproteins, (5) The interaction of multifunctional viral proteins with cellular proteins to control both translation and cell cycle; (6) Using reverse genetics to understand viral pathogenesis; (7) The mechanism by which paramyxoviruses defeat the cellular innate immune system. Dr. Lamb’s laboratory uses a multidisciplinary approach applying techniques from molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, biochemistry and structural biology (X-ray crystallography and NMR) to address these questions.