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05th April 2018

Professor of Virology Ervin Fodor to receive the AstraZeneca Award 2019

Exeter College’s Professor of Virology, Ervin Fodor, will receive the 2019 AstraZeneca Award, it has been announced.

Professor Fodor’s research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of influenza virus replication, virus-host interactions and host responses to viral infection. His research group played a pivotal role in uncovering the RNA-free high-resolution structure of the influenza virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and discovering how influenza virus hijacks the host transcriptional machinery for the transcription of its own genes. A reverse genetics system for influenza virus developed by Professor Fodor and colleagues in the late 1990s is used for the preparation of a live attenuated influenza virus vaccine for the UK National Childhood Flu Immunisation Programme.

Professor Fodor said: “I am surprised and delighted to receive the AstraZeneca Award; it is a great honour to join the list of previous eminent winners of this award. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the inspirational scientists who mentored me and thank present and past members of my research group as well as my collaborators whose hard work and dedication underpins all of our research achievements. I am also indebted to the Medical Research Council for generously supporting our research for many years.”

The AstraZeneca Award is made every three years by the Biochemical Society in recognition of outstanding work which, through biomedical advances, leads to development of a new reagent or method. Remarkably this will be the second time an Exeter College Fellow has received the AstraZeneca Award. In 2016 Professor Dame Carol Robinson, Dr Lee’s Professor of Chemistry, received the Award for the significant contribution her work has made to the development of mass-spectrometry techniques for the analysis of biologically important complexes.

Professor Fodor will give the AstraZeneca Award Lecture at a Biochemical Society meeting in 2019. To read more about his work click here.

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