Cytomegalovirus Research Group

• Overview
• Research achievements

Overview

Associate Professor Barry Slobedman established the Cytomegalovirus Research Group at the Westmead Millennium Institute. The Group includes those at Honours degree, PhD and post-doctoral level and positions are frequently available for those with a keen interest in biomedical research.

Research achievements

Human CMV is a herpesvirus which infects a vast majority of the world’s population, where it is a leading cause of opportunistic and congenital disease. Primary productive infection leads to a lifelong latent infection that is characterised by maintenance of the viral genome without infectious virus production. Periodically, the virus reactivates from latency and is shed in bodily secretions. Whilst primary and reactivated infections are usually mild or asymptomatic in healthy adults, primary infection is a major cause of serious congenital infection leading to still birth or neurological damage in children and reactivated infection is a major cause of life-threatening disease in immunosuppressed individuals, such as those with HIV AIDS and in allogeneic stem cell and solid organ transplant recipients.

The overall goal of the CMV Research Group is to define the mechanisms by which CMV causes life-threatening disease in these at-risk individuals, so as to provide a rational basis for the design of novel anti-viral therapeutics to prevent or treat CMV disease.

A/Prof Slobedman has held continuous competitive NHMRC Project and/or Program grant funding throughout his career. He is currently an Editorial Board member of the Journal of General Virology and Herpesviridae, and is Treasurer of the Australasian Virology Society.