Research Driven by Curiosity: The Journey from Basic Molecular Biology and Virology to Studies of Human Pathogenic Coronaviruses

Perlman, Stanley

My research training was initially in cell biology, developmental biology, and molecular virology, but after attending medical school and receiving additional training as a pediatric infectious diseases physician, my interests became focused on immunopathology and immune evasion in viral disease. Driven partly by clinical observations, key questions for me were the following: Why did clinical disease often worsen after pathogens were cleared? Why was the host unable to efficiently titrate the immune response so that tissue damage was prevented while pathogens were cleared? I became especially interested in neurological infections after observing the devastating effects that viruses had on the developing brain. Essential to addressing these questions was identifying a useful experimental animal system. Mice infected with a murine coronavirus, mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), developed myelin (proteolipid sheath surrounding neural axons) destruction as virus was cleared, serving as a good model for immunopathological disease and, parenthetically, for studies of the human disease multiple sclerosis.