Dr. Ohainle's research aims to define the molecular bases of how host antiviral genes block infection by viruses as well as to understand how viruses adapt to and evade these host cell restrictions. Current projects focus on the important global human pathogen, HIV, but also aim to understand these concepts among the related primate simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) as well as other viral infections. This work leverages a novel functional genomics approach developed in our lab (HIV-CRISPR Screening) to comprehensively identify host factors that either prevent or facilitate HIV infection. Through HIV-CRISPR screening and other functional genomics approaches, host and viral evolutionary genetics and classic molecular virology Dr. Ohainle's group pursues mechanistic studies to understand the molecular bases for key host/virus interactions. Overall we hope that our work will help to define the molecular mechanisms through which host restriction and viral evasion/antagonism operate to determine barriers to infection and mechanisms by which viruses adapt to overcome these barriers.

https://research.fhcrc.org/emerman/en/ohainle-group.html