Amit Sharma

Bio

The overarching goal of my research program is to address the need to combat globally circulating and (re)emerging viral infections. This is of high relevance to Global One Health initiatives as ecological and anthropogenic activities have the potential to disturb the delicate equilibrium between animals, humans, and their shared environment, resulting in emergence and spread of novel viral pathogens. In our laboratory, we study permissive and restrictive virus-host interactions that govern cross-species viral transmission and exploit such interactions for treatment and prevention research. Our studies focus on: 1) functional interactions between viral surface glycoproteins and cellular entry receptors; and 2) viral antagonism and escape from host immune responses. We are distilling this knowledge to design biologically relevant macaque models of HIV-1 infection and antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 and related bat sarbecoviruses.