Fatah Kashanchi

Dr. Fatah Kashanchi is the Director of Research of George Mason University's Biomedical Research Laboratory and Professor of Microbiology. His area of expertise is the Molecular Biology of human retroviruses, namely HIV-1 and HTLV-1. Dr. Kashanchi has published more than 157 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has a number of NIH (R01 and R21) grants, Keck foundation grant, as well as institutional funding for my research. He currently serves on a number of national advisory and review committees, including five NIH and NFS study sections. Dr. Fatah Kashanchi received his Ph.D. in 1990 in Microbiology with emphasis on HIV gene his post-doctoral and Research Associate fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. He was tenured at the George Washington University medical school as a full Professor in 2004 and moved to GMU as director of research in 2010. The current research in Dr. Kashanchi's lab is focused on defining transcriptional and chromatin mediated regulation of HIV and HTLV-1 infected cells. The Kashanchi lab's studies have resulted in novel concepts regarding promoter-bound proteins that regulate all events of mRNA biogenesis (including capping, elongation, termination, poly A addition, splicing), nuclear-cytoplasmic transport, and activation of nonsense mRNA degradation. Among biothreat agents, the Kashanchi lab is working with Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) and Venuzueln Equine Encepalitis virus (VEEV) replication in vitro and in vivo and defining crucial host-pathogen interactions that are imperative to pathogenesis.