Principal Investigator
Honors & News
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January 14, 2010
Cancer Researcher Receives Innovation Award for Pioneering Ideas
Joshua Munger, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, has received a prestigious Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Innovation Award, which recognizes promising early-career scientists who have outstanding research but lack sufficient preliminary data to get traditional funding.
Munger's research focuses on cancer cell metabolism. A virologist and biochemist by training, he is studying the metabolic activities that are altered when cells transform from normal to malignant. Whereas previous studies have focused narrowly on individual metabolic activities, Munger is taking a more global approach by examining the rates of numerous individual metabolic processes simultaneously.
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September 29, 2008
Existing Anti-Obesity Drugs May Be Effective Against Flu, Hepatitis and HIV
Flu Virus with Envelope
Viruses dramatically increase cellular metabolism, and existing anti-obesity drugs may represent a new way to block these metabolic changes and inhibit viral infection, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
Using new fluxomic techniques, our study reveals that viral infection takes control of cellular metabolism and drives, among other things, marked increases in fatty acid synthesis,
said Joshua Munger, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and a study author.We also found that if you target these increases in fatty acid metabolism using existing anti-obesity and anti-metabolism drugs, you inhibit viral replication.
Recent Publications
- (2012 Jan 01). HCMV targets the metabolic stress response through activation of AMPK whose activity is important for viral replication. PLoS Pathog. 8, e1002502.
- (2011 Dec 23). The transcription factor Myc controls metabolic reprogramming upon T lymphocyte activation. Immunity. 35, 871-82.
- (2011 Jul 05). Metabolite profiles of human immunodeficiency virus infected CD4+ T cells and macrophages using LC-MS/MS analysis. Virology. 415, 153-9.
