Departmental webpage: http://www.path.ox.ac.uk/content/ervin-fodor
Biography
I obtained my MSc in Chemical Technology at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava and then worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Virology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava before entering graduate studies at the University of Oxford. After graduating with a DPhil in Pathology in 1995 I carried out postdoctoral work at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine New York and the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford. In 2002 I obtained an MRC Senior Non-Clinical Research Fellowship followed by an RCUK Academic Fellowship which helped to establish my research group at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology. After a brief period as an Assistant Professor and a Senior Research Fellow at Linacre Collage, I have been appointed as Reader in Experimental Pathology and Professorial Fellow at Exeter College in 2011. In the same year I have been conferred on the title of Professor of Virology.
Research
My research interests are centred on viruses, particularly influenza viruses, which are important human and animal pathogens causing widespread clinical and veterinary disease. My group focuses on the fundamental molecular mechanisms of influenza virus replication, aiming to understand the molecular determinants of host range and virulence of influenza viruses. By gaining further insights into the molecular aspects of influenza virus replication we hope to facilitate the development of novel strategies to combat influenza.
Specifically, we address questions ranging from how the influenza virus RNA polymerase transcribes and replicates the segmented negative-sense viral RNA genome in the nucleus of the infected cell to how the RNA genome is exported from the nucleus and assembles into infectious progeny virus particles. We are also interested in the role of host factors in viral replication as well as in understanding the effects of virus infection on the host cell, the molecular mechanisms of innate immune sensing and host cell responses to viral infection.
We collaborate with structural biologists, physicists, chemists and immunologists using an inter-disciplinary approach including molecular and cell biology, proteomics, single molecule and super-resolution microscopy, structural biology (x-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy), and virology.
Teaching
I organize the Virology theme in the Final Year Honours School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and provide lectures and tutorials within this theme. I also contribute lectures in virology in second year Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
My laboratory offers research projects in Biochemistry (Part II projects), Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (FHS projects).
Selected Publications
te Velthuis AJ, Fodor E
Influenza virus RNA polymerase: insights into the mechanisms of viral RNA synthesis.
Nat Rev Microbiol 14:479, 2016.
Hengrung N, El Omari K, Serna Martin I, Vreede FT, Cusack S, Rambo RP, Vonrhein C, Bricogne G, Stuart DI, Grimes JM, Fodor E
Crystal structure of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase from influenza C virus. Nature 527:114, 2015.
Hutchinson EC, Charles PD, Hester SS, Thomas B, Trudgian D, Martínez-Alonso M, Fodor E
Conserved and host-specific features of influenza virion architecture.
Nature Commun 5:4816, 2014.
York A, Hengrung N, Vreede FT, Huiskonen J, Fodor E
Isolation and characterisation of the positive-sense replicative intermediate of a negative-strand RNA virus.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 110:4238, 2013.
Yuan P, Bartlam M, Lou Z, Chen S, Zhou J, He X, Lv Z, Ge R, Li X, Deng T, Fodor E, Rao Z, Liu Y
Crystal structure of an avian influenza polymerase PA(N) reveals an endonuclease active site.
Nature 458:909, 2009.
