Tim Foster

Tim is an Associate Professor of Virology and Pathogen-Host Interactions at LSU Health Sciences Center, New Orleans. Over the past 25 years, Tim has investigated the mechanisms that pathogens employ to facilitate their replication and how they interact with their host to induce inflammation-associated disease. Tim has worked with both industry and academia to evaluate and develop novel antiviral drugs. As part of an interdisciplinary team of clinical and basic scientists, he established the concept that disruption of common non-essential metabolic pathways could broadly inhibit pathogen replication, while simultaneously controlling severe viral- and inflammation-associated disease. This concept was recognized by a 2013 NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award and multiple US and international patents.

As part of these efforts and in collaboration with Eleusis scientific founder Dr. Charles Nichols, Tim made the groundbreaking discovery that viral-infections ubiquitously upregulate peripheral serotonin synthesis pathways to enable their efficient replication, and in so doing, increase host-mediated inflammatory disease. Disruption of these processes by 5-HT2A agonists inhibited development of HSV-associated chronic ocular disease, including viral reactivation from neurons, as well as vision-threatening neovascularization, chronic inflammation, and fibrosis. A major aspect of Tim’s current research effort is to elucidate the mechanisms and pathways underlying these protective effects and to translate those findings into clinically relevant therapeutic indications.