Benedikt Kaufer, director of the Institute of Virology at Freie Universität Berlin Image Credit: private / Benedikt Kaufer
Director of the Institute of Virology at Freie Universität Berlin to receive two million euros in funding from the European Research Council. Benedikt Kaufer, director of the Institute of Virology at Freie Universität Berlin Image Credit: private / Benedikt Kaufer The European Research Council (ERC) is providing funding to a new research project led by the director of the Institute of Virology at the Department of Veterinary Medicine at Freie Universität Berlin, Professor Benedikt Kaufer, in the form of an ERC Consolidator Grant. The virologist will receive two million euros for his five-year research project "Endogenous Human Herpesvirus: Germ Line Integration and Effects on Host Cell and Organism - ENDo-Herpes." The project will investigate an endogenous herpesvirus that is carried by about eighty million people worldwide in every cell of their body. Endogenous viruses present in the human genome control physiological processes, modulate aging, and can cause disease. "What is particularly interesting for us is that a specific herpesvirus has entered the human germ line by integrating its genome into the telomeres - the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes - of germ cells," explains Kaufer. About eighty million people now carry this heritable, chromosomally integrated human herpesvirus 6 (iciHHV-6). The virus can be reactivated from its integrated state, which is associated with various diseases such as encephalitis, chronic heart failure, and transplant rejection.
TO READ THIS ARTICLE, CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT
And extend your reading, free of charge and with no commitment.
