Research Bench Lab
Amy Hudson, PhD

Amy Hudson, PhD

Professor

Locations

  • Microbiology & Immunology
    BSB B2810

Contact Information

General Interests

Viral Immune Evasion

Education

PhD, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard University, 1995

Research Experience

  • Antigen Presentation
  • Exanthema Subitum
  • Genes, MHC Class I
  • Herpesvirus 6, Human
  • Herpesvirus 7, Human
  • HHV-6
  • HHV-7
  • human CD45
  • insulin-responsive glucose transport
  • membrane trafficking
  • synaptic vesicle recycling
  • viral immune evasion

Research Interests

We are interested in how viruses escape detection by the immune system.

As a response to selective pressures exerted by the host immune system, many viruses have developed an equally complex set of immunoevasive strategies. Perhaps most interesting is the array of unique strategies that viruses employ to interfere with the presentation of viral antigens on the surface of host cells for recognition by cytotoxic T lymphocytes.

Many viruses, including all known members of the Herpesvirus family, target antigen presentation by class I MHC molecules as a means of undermining the anti-viral immune response. We focus on two recently discovered human herpesviruses, HHV-6 and -7. Little is known about the immunobiology of these two beta-herpesviruses. They are most closely related to human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), and like all other herpesviruses, HHV-6 and -7 remain latent or establish persistent infections. Thus, it seemed likely that HHV-6 and -7 would also encode unique mechanisms of immune evasion. Because so many of the viral immunoevasins affect trafficking or stability of class I MHC molecules, we took a biochemical approach to examine the maturation and stability of class I molecules in HHV-7-infected T cells.

Publications