Saint Louis University (SLU)
Virology (CoV, DENV, and AAV)
Virology is one of the most exciting fields in biology, from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to viral-based gene and cancer therapies. In Tse Lab, we seek to understand viral pathogenesis and transmission (zoonotic, enzootic, and pandemic) at the molecular level to ultimately develop new guidelines, vaccines, and antivirals for public health measures. On the other hand, we also focus on engineering pathogenic viruses into harmless nanoparticles for medical use in gene therapy and vaccine development.
Evolution is the best engineer in nature. Inspired by the elegance of evolution, we use multiple innovative technologies (saturation-mutagenesis, directed-evolution, molecular engineering, CRISPR genome-wide screening, and multiple –omics sequencing) to recapitulate, direct, and accelerate the natural viral evolution process in a controlled laboratory environment to
1) Understand viral pathogenesis and transmission by dissecting each facet of viral infection
2) Convert such knowledge to engineer viruses into novel nanoparticle therapeutics.