Retroviruses and Novel Drugs

Biography

Karin Moelling was born in Northern Germany, trained as a physicist specialized in Nuclear Physics. She was trained at Berkeley, University of California, in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. She took her PhD at the Max-Planck-Institute for Virology at Tübingen, Germany, and her Habilitation at the University of Giessen in Biophysics. She worked at the Robert Koch-Institute in Berlin, the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. In 1993 she became Director and Professor of the Institute for Medical Virology at the University of Zurich and Head of the Viral Diagnostics Department of the University Hospital, which she increased 15-fold. She had to retire there and is still affiliated with the University of Zurich and the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. She was Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study at Berlin 2008/2009 and became Vice President of the Fellow Club.

Research Interest

Viruses, in particular retroviruses, and cancer, from molecular mechanisms to drug design. Replication of HIV, discovery of the retroviral RNase H, development of antiretroviral mechanisms driving HIV into suicide, and various oncogenes such as identification of Myc and Myb as nuclear transcription factors, and discovery of the Mil/Raf kinase as retroviral oncogene. Interest in signal transduction in normal and tumor cells, gene regulation, cell-cycle, transcription factors, PDZ domains, scaffold proteins, oncogenes in leukemias, lymphomas, cancer, gene medicine/therapy, vaccines, HIV/AIDS, Influenza, viruses in immune-suppression, antiviral drug design, silencing by siDNA. biotechnology, non-coding RNA, endogenous viruses, evolution of viruses.