Ila Singh, MD, PhD

We are interested in studying the processes of virus-cell interaction and viral replication using genetic, biochemical and cell biological approaches. We have developed a novel technique called genetic footprinting, which allows thousands of precisely defined mutations to be made and analyzed in order to define functionally essential domains in a sequence of interest. We are applying genetic footprinting to retroviruses, to hepatitis C virus and to West Nile virus. The goal is to understand the precise role of every sequence in the viral genome, in each specific step of infection. In the long-term, these analyses are geared towards achieving a better understanding of the process of viral infection, and towards designing better preventive and therapeutic anti-viral strategies.

Publications

• Auerbach M.R., Shu C., Kaplan A., and I.R. Singh. (2003) Functional characterization of a portion of the Moloney murine leukemia virus gag gene by genetic footprinting. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100:11678-11683.
  Commentary to article.

• Quinonez, R, Sinha, I, Singh, I. R., & R. E. Sutton. (2003) Genetic Footprinting of the HIV Co-Receptor CCR5: Delineation of surface expression and viral entry determinants. Virology, 307(1): 98-115.

• Singh I.R., Crowley R. A. and P. O. Brown. (1997) High resolution functional mapping of a cloned gene by Genetic Footprinting. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 94:1304-1309.

• Singh I.R., Suomalainen M., Malhan S., Garoff H. and A. Helenius. (1997) Multiple mechanisms for the inhibition of entry and uncoating of superinfecting Semliki Forest virus. Virology, 231:59-71.