The Department of Microbiology and Immunology is pleased to announce that Kwun Wah Wen is the 2010 Manire Award recipient. Kwun Wah is a fourth year MD/Ph.D.student in Blossom Damania’s lab. The selection committee felt that Kwun Wah’s research accomplishments were most impressive…
The Department of Microbiology and Immunology is pleased to announce that Kwun Wah Wen is the 2010 Manire Award recipient. Kwun Wah is a fourth year MD/Ph.D.student in Blossom Damania’s lab. The selection committee felt that Kwun Wah’s research accomplishments were most impressive. He has described roles for cellular chaperones Hsp90 and Hsp40 in the accumulation of KSHV encoded K1, and in K1’s role in preventing apoptosis. He has also created a LANA-null variant of RRV (the rhesus equivalent of KSHV) and demonstrated that this virus is highly virulent compared to the parental strain, and impaired in the ability to establish latent infection in B cells, underscoring a key role for LANA in the normal life cycle of the virus. The first author publications that summarize these results attest to his strong work ethic, his intellectual curiosity, and emphasis on pursuing basic research topics in human disease.