Zhongde Wang
Utah State University, UT·Microbiology & Immunology
Hepatitis B virus infects the liver and is one of the world's most common chronic infections, with roughly 296 million people living with it and about 820,000 deaths each year from complications such as liver scarring and liver cancer. Current drugs suppress the virus but rarely cure it.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Genetics
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
hepatitis B virus
cccDNA
Syrian hamster
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Create a humanized-NTCP Syrian hamster using CRISPR gene editing to change the two codons in the hamster NTCP entry receptor that encode the amino acid residues required for hepatitis B virus infection.
- Establish acute and chronic hepatitis B infection in humanized-NTCP hamsters and characterize the resulting liver disease, including how the virus progresses in an animal with a fully intact immune system.
- Characterize the antibody (humoral) immune responses raised during acute versus chronic infection in the humanized-NTCP hamster model.
- Test whether the hamster model can discriminate among anti-viral strategies by treating chronically infected animals with tenofovir, a direct-acting antiviral, the interferon IFNalphacon-1, and the epigenetic modifier MS436.
More about the research
A key bottleneck is the lack of a laboratory animal that has a fully normal immune system and can also be infected by the virus through its complete life cycle. This project aims to build such a model in the Syrian hamster.
Why it matters
A hamster with an intact immune system that is genuinely susceptible to hepatitis B would give drug developers a way to test candidate therapies for chronic infection, and to study how disease and antibody responses unfold, in a whole animal rather than cultured cells. That could speed progress toward treatments aimed at a functional cure for the hundreds of millions of people with chronic hepatitis B, who face elevated risk of cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Guangxiang Luo
Wake Forest University, NC·Microbiology & Immunology
Develop an immunocompetent mouse model of hepatitis B virus infection and replication by co-expressing the entry receptor NTCP with human apolipoprotein E3 and LDLR in mice lacking PCSK9, a protein that degrades LDLR.
J.-H. James Ou
University of Southern California, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Identify maternal HBV factors that support virus replication in offspring and weaken their anti-HBV immunity, using mice born to HBV transgenic mothers.
Justin Bailey
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether a dengue vaccine's serotype composition determines the balance, neutralizing potency, and durability of serotype-specific versus cross-reactive memory B cells and monoclonal antibodies, and whether those responses predict protection after controlled human challenge with serotype 2.
The school
Utah State University: 5 labs on PI Pages, $451M a year on research, 126 research doctorates a year.
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