Adolfo García-Sastre

Dr. García-Sastre is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. For the past 25 years, his research interest has focused on the molecular biology of influenza viruses and several other negative-strand RNA viruses. During his post-doctoral training in the early 1990s, he developed, for the first time, novel strategies for the expression of foreign antigens by a negative-strand RNA virus, an influenza virus. Dr. Garcia-Sastre has made major contributions to the influenza virus field, including the development of reverse genetics techniques allowing the generation of recombinant influenza viruses from plasmid DNA, (studies in collaboration with Dr. Michael Palese); the generation and evaluation of negative-strand RNA virus vectors as potential vaccine candidates against different infectious diseases, including malaria and AIDS; and the identification of the biological role of the non-structural protein NS1 of influenza virus during infection: the inhibition of the type 1 interferon (IFN) system. His studies provided the first description and molecular analysis of a viral-encoded IFN antagonist among negative-strand RNA viruses. These studies led to the generation of attenuated influenza viruses containing defined mutations in their IFN antagonist protein that might prove to be optimal live vaccines against influenza. Dr. Garcia-Sastre’s research has resulted in more than 480 scientific publications and reviews. He is the director of the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis (CRIP), one of the five NIAID-funded Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance.