School of Biomedical Sciences is pleased to invite you to join the following seminar:

Date: 6 October, 2023 (Friday)
Time: 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre 3, G/F, William M.W. Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road

Speaker: Professor Geoffrey Smith, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford
Talk Title: Evasion of innate immunity by vaccinia virus: Does monkeypox virus do so too?
Host: Prof. Dong-Yan Jin

Biography

Geoffrey L. Smith obtained his PhD (1981) for work with influenza virus at NIMR, London. Then as a postdoc with Bernard Moss at NIH, USA (1981-4) he developed vaccinia virus (the smallpox vaccine) as an expression vector and established the principle of using genetically engineered viruses as live vaccines. He continued studying poxviruses after returning to UK at Cambridge (1985-9), Oxford (1989-2000), Imperial College London (2000-11), Cambridge (2011-22) and again at Oxford from 2023. His research group studies the interactions of poxviruses with the host cell and immune system.

Previously, he was Chair of the WHO Advisory Committee for Variola Virus Research, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Centre for Structural and Systems Biology Hamburg, Chair of the Royal Society Committee for Scientific Aspects of International Security, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Friedrich-Loeffler Institute (German Ministry for Food and Agriculture), a member of the University Research Grants Council Hong Kong, and President of the International Union of Microbiological Societies. Currently, he is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Pirbright Institute, UK. He is a member of the Royal Society, UK and Leopoldina - the German National Academy of Sciences (2011).

Abstract
Poxviruses replicate in the cell cytoplasm and have large dsDNA genomes. The most infamous poxvirus is variola virus, the cause of smallpox, a disease eradicated by vaccination with vaccinia virus (VACV), a related orthopoxvirus. Monkeypox virus is another orthopoxvirus that has caused a worldwide epidemic in 2022-3 with about 90,000 confirmed cases and 145 deaths. These viruses all encode about 200 proteins with those required for virus replication encoded predominantly near the centre of the genome, whilst genes towards either end encode factors dispensable for virus replication, but which function to suppress the innate immune response to infection. These genes are the subject of this talk, which will describe recent discovery of host factors that restrict poxviruses and viral evasion strategies. The talk will also consider how gene loss has contributed to the evolution of variola virus in humans and might do so for monkeypox virus.

ALL ARE WELCOME

Should you have any enquiries, please feel free to contact Miss Angela Wong at 3917 9216.