Sean Whelan (scientist)

Sean Whelan is a British-American virologist. He is known for identifying the cellular protein used as a receptor by Ebola virus,[1][2][3] for defining the entry pathway that rabies virus uses to enter neurons,[4] and for identifying the ribosome as a possible target for antiviral drugs.[5][6] In July 2019, he was announced as the new Chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri.[7][8] In February 2020, Whelan was recognized as the LGBTQ+ Scientist of the Year 2020 by the National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals.[9][10]

Professor

Sean P.J. Whelan

Ph.D.
Sean Whelan in 2019
Born1967
Leeds, England
CitizenshipUS and UK
Alma materUniversity of Birmingham, England
Scientific career
InstitutionsHarvard Medical School
Washington University in St. Louis
ThesisAlteration of the Cellular Binding Characteristics of Poliovirus (1993)
Doctoral advisorJeffrey Almond, University of Reading
Other academic advisorsGail Wertz, University of Alabama
Websitehttp://whelanlab.med.harvard.edu/

Education

Whelan received a First Class Honors degree in Microbiology and Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham. He performed his PhD work with noted virologist Jeffrey Almond, then at the University of Reading.

Career

Whelan joined Harvard Medical School's Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics in 2002. He was promoted to Professor of Microbiology and Immunobiology in 2012. He served as head of Harvard's PhD Program in Virology,[11] and directed an NIH-funded Center for Excellence in Translational Research.[12] In July 2019, Washington University in St. Louis announced that Whelan had been named Chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and the Marvin A. Brennecke Distinguished Professor of Microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine.[13]

Whelan's research focuses on using Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) as a model system for negative-sense single-stranded RNA viruses such as the rabies, measles and Ebola viruses. He began this work as a post-doc in the laboratory of Professor Gail Wertz, developing a system for expressing infectious VSV particles from cDNA clones,[14] which led to a patent on VSV-based gene therapy vectors and vaccines.[15] VSV pseudotypes, which carry the envelope proteins of other viruses, are useful tools for studying the behavior of pathogenic viruses.[16] Whelan has used this approach to study the entry process of Ebola,[17] to identify the cellular protein the virus uses as a receptor,[1][2][3] and to study how the rabies virus infects neurons.[4]

Whelan also studies the viral life cycle of VSV to identify potential antiviral targets.[5][18] He identified a specific subunit of the ribosome, RPL40, as being essential to initiate translation of VSV mRNAs.[6] This selective mechanism allows the virus to block translation of host mRNAs without preventing the production of its own proteins. Interfering with this mechanism could lead to antiviral therapies.[5] With Stephen C. Harrison, he used cryo-EM to determine the structure of the L protein of VSV,[19] revealing several potential drug targets.[18]

Advocacy

As a founding member of the group "Scientists for Science",[20] Whelan has argued that research into infectious pathogens is "essential for a comprehensive understanding of microbial disease pathogenesis, prevention and treatment", and that further regulation of work on dangerous pathogens should only be considered in the context of "input from outside experts with the background and skills to conduct actual risk assessments based on specific experiments and existing laboratories".[21]

Awards

• 2005 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease[22]

• 2010 Genzyme Young Innovator Award

• 2011 Hoffmann-La Roche Investigator in Molecular Virology

• 2013 American Academy of Microbiology Fellow

• 2015 NIH MERIT award

• 2020 NOGLSTP LGBTQ+ Scientist of the Year.[9]

References
  1. Carette, Jan E.; Raaben, Matthijs; Wong, Anthony C.; Herbert, Andrew S.; Obernosterer, Gregor; Mulherkar, Nirupama; Kuehne, Ana I.; Kranzusch, Philip J.; Griffin, April M. (2011-08-24). "Ebola virus entry requires the cholesterol transporter Niemann-Pick C1". Nature. 477 (7364): 340–343. doi:10.1038/nature10348. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 3175325. PMID 21866103.
  2. "Scientists find weakness in deadly Ebola virus". Reuters. 2011-08-24. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  3. "Attacking Ebola". Harvard Gazette. 2011-08-24. Retrieved 2019-02-22.
  4. Whelan, Sean P. J.; Piccinotti, Silvia (2016-07-27). "Rabies Internalizes into Primary Peripheral Neurons via Clathrin Coated Pits and Requires Fusion at the Cell Body". PLOS Pathogens. 12 (7): e1005753. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1005753. ISSN 1553-7374. PMC 4963122. PMID 27463226.
  5. "Ribosome regulates viral protein synthesis, revealing potential therapeutic target". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-02-22.
  6. Whelan, Sean P. J.; Burdeinick-Kerr, Rebeca; Lee, Amy Si-Ying (2013-01-02). "A ribosome-specialized translation initiation pathway is required for cap-dependent translation of vesicular stomatitis virus mRNAs". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (1): 324–329. doi:10.1073/pnas.1216454109. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 3538191. PMID 23169626.
  7. "Whelan named head of molecular microbiology". Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. 2019-07-18. Retrieved 2019-10-11.
  8. "Sean Whelan to be head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology | Office of Neuroscience Research | Washington University in St. Louis". neuroscienceresearch.wustl.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-11.
  9. "2020-02-16: NOGLSTSP Recognizes Brownell, Dell, and Whelan as LGBTQ+ Educator, Engineer, and Scientist of the Year for 2020 and Queer Science as Organization of the Year – NOGLSTP". Retrieved 2020-02-17.
  10. "Whelan named LGBTQ+ scientist of the year". Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. 2020-02-17. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
  11. "Program in Virology". www.hms.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-20.
  12. "Centers of Excellence for Translational Research (CETR) Locations | NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases". www.niaid.nih.gov. Retrieved 2019-07-20.
  13. "Whelan named head of molecular microbiology". Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. 2019-07-18. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  14. Whelan, S. P.; Ball, L. A.; Barr, J. N.; Wertz, G. T. (1995-08-29). "Efficient recovery of infectious vesicular stomatitis virus entirely from cDNA clones". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 92 (18): 8388–8392. doi:10.1073/pnas.92.18.8388. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 41162. PMID 7667300.
  15. US Patent 5789229, G.W. Wertz, Q. Yu, A. Ball, J.N. Barr, and S.P.J. Whelan, "Gene Therapy Vectors and Vaccines Based on Non-segmented Negative-Stranded RNA Viruses", issued 1998-1-1
  16. Whitt, Michael A. (2010). "Generation of VSV Pseudotypes Using Recombinant ΔG-VSV for Studies on Virus Entry, Identification of Entry Inhibitors, and Immune Responses to Vaccines". Journal of Virological Methods. 169 (2): 365–374. doi:10.1016/j.jviromet.2010.08.006. ISSN 0166-0934. PMC 2956192. PMID 20709108.
  17. Chandran, Kartik; Sullivan, Nancy J.; Felbor, Ute; Whelan, Sean P.; Cunningham, James M. (2005-06-10). "Endosomal proteolysis of the Ebola virus glycoprotein is necessary for infection". Science. 308 (5728): 1643–1645. doi:10.1126/science.1110656. ISSN 1095-9203. PMC 4797943. PMID 15831716.
  18. "The Future of Molecular Visualization | Harvard Medical School". hms.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  19. Liang, Bo; Li, Zongli; Jenni, Simon; Rahmeh, Amal A.; Morin, Benjamin M.; Grant, Timothy; Grigorieff, Nikolaus; Harrison, Stephen C.; Whelan, Sean P. J. (2015-07-16). "Structure of the L Protein of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus from Electron Cryomicroscopy". Cell. 162 (2): 314–327. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.06.018. ISSN 1097-4172. PMC 4557768. PMID 26144317.
  20. "Scientists for Science". www.scientistsforscience.org. Retrieved 2019-02-23.
  21. Jul 30, Robert Roos | News Editor | CIDRAP News |; 2014. "Scientists voice support for research on dangerous pathogens". CIDRAP. Retrieved 2019-02-21.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. "Grant Recipients 2002-2005 | Burroughs Wellcome Fund". www.bwfund.org. Retrieved 2020-02-17.
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