Adolfo García-Sastre

Adolfo García-Sastre, Ph.D.
Fields	Microbiology
Institutions	Mount Sinai Medical Center
Alma mater	University of Salamanca
Known for	influenza virus research; reconstruction of the extinct 1918 pandemic influenza virus

Adolfo García-Sastre, Ph.D., is a Professor of Medicine and Microbiology and co-director of the Global Health & Emerging Pathogens Institute at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. His research into the biology of influenza viruses has been at the forefront of medical advances in epidemiology.

García-Sastre is the author of more than 200 publications.

Biography

Born in Burgos, Spain, Dr. García-Sastre earned his Ph.D at the University of Salamanca. His research interest has been focused on the molecular biology of influenza viruses and several other negative-strand RNA viruses. His contributions to his field have included the generation and evaluation of influenza virus vectors as potential vaccine candidates against infectious diseases, including malaria and AIDS, as well as the development (with Dr. Peter Palese) of the first reverse-genetic approaches for the production of infectious recombinant influenza viruses from plasmid DNA – research which has resulted in techniques which are now routinely used with many negative strand RNA viruses. He was the first to identify the biological role of the non-structural NS1 Influenza Protein during infection, the first to describe and provide a molecular analysis of a viral-encoded IFN antagonist among negative strand RNA viruses, and the first to demonstrate that the M1 protein of the influenza virus determines its morphology.

In 2005, as principal investigator of an NIAID program project grant, García-Sastre and his team made headlines when they reconstructed the extinct 1918 pandemic influenza virus.

García-Sastre is an editor for the Journal of Experimental Medicine and PLOS Pathogens, and he sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Virology, Virology, Virus Research and the Journal of General Virology. In 2001, he co-organized the International Course on Viral Vectors in Heidelberg, Germany, which was sponsored by the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS), as well as the first Research Conference on Orthomyxoviruses, also in 2001, which was held in the Netherlands and sponsored by the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza. He is a co-founder of Vivaldi Biosciences and a member of the company’s Scientific Advisory board and is the leader of the basic research component on the NIAID-funded Viral Therapeutics and Pathogenesis of the North East Biodefense Center proposal. He was among the first members of the Vaccine Study Section of the National Institutes of Health. He is also principal investigator for the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis, one of five NIAID Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS).

Patents

García-Sastre holds 7 patents:

Number	Title
20090280144	Recombinant newcastle disease virus RNA expression systems and vaccines
20090203114	Novel methods and Interferon deficient substrates for the propagation of virues
20090061521	Recombinant negative strand RNA virus expression systems and vaccines
20090053264	Attenuated negative strand viruses with altered interferon antagonist activity for use as vaccines and pharmaceuticals
20090028901	Screening methods for identifying viral proteins with interferon antagonizing functions and potential antiviral agents
20090010962	Genetically Engineered Swine Influenza Virus and Uses Thereof
20080254060	Genetically Engineered Equine Influenza Virus and Uses Thereof

Publications

Partial List:

External links

• Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai homepage
• The Global Health & Emerging Pathogens Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
• The Adolfo García-Sastre Lab at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine