Role and Contribution
The Department of Medical Microbiology at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), the Netherlands, is headed by Professor Willy J. M. Spaan. It employs more than 130 people working on the structure, expression and evolution of viral genomes, pathogenesis, diagnosis of virus infections, and development of vaccines and antiviral therapy. The more than 25 researchers united in the Molecular Virology Laboratory form a multidisciplinary team, with expertise in virus bioinformatics, molecular genetics, biochemistry, and the cell biology of virus infections. This group is among the world leaders in studies of the molecular mechanisms and evolution of the replicative machinery of RNA viruses, particularly coronaviruses and other nidoviruses. LUMC has state-of-the-art facilities to study viruses theoretically and experimentally. The Department of Medical Microbiology has participated and continues to participate in many EU-funded research projects studying RNA viruses. In addition to being active in two sections of the VIZIER project, LUMC has coordinated two FP5 research programmes, has coordinated an FP6 program on SARS-Coronavirus (www.SARS-DTV.nl), participates in the FP6 Network of Excellence viRgil (www.virgil-net.org), and is a Partner in the FP6 Network of Excellence GRACE (https://www.grace-lrti.org/portal/en-GB).
The people involved in section 1 (Bioinformatics) of the VIZIER project at LUMC are:
Dr. Alexander Gorbalenya, Associate Professor and Head of the Virus Evolution and Bioinformatics group. He published more than 130 peer-reviewed papers, mostly on the analysis of replicases of diverse RNA viruses in pursuit of understanding the origin and evolution of viruses. He serves on a number of the International Committees and Boards concerned with Viruses and Bioinformatics. Dr. Gorbalenya is a member of the VIZIER Steering Committee and the Training and Dissemination Committee, and is also leading Section 1 and a VIZIER WAVE on the nsp3 protein of coronaviruses.
Bernd Brandt, post-doctoral fellow, has worked for two years on the identification of domains in the replicase polyproteins of negative-stranded RNA viruses and on developing tools for unraveling distant protein relationships. He left the group in March 2007.
Johan Faase, Ph.D. student, is working on phylogenetic analysis of positive-stranded RNA viruses to identify viruses worth studying by the consortium and on sequence annotation.
Dmitry Samborskiy, software developer, was responsible for the initial development and testing of core modules of the Viralis platform. He was involved in the setting up and maintenance of the WEB-browser for Viralis. He left the group in April 2007.
Igor Sidorov, senior post-doctoral fellow, is taking over the administration and advancement of the Viralis platform.
Frans van Herwijnen, Engineer, is responsible for administrating the bioinformatics UNIX/LINUX-based computer network.
The people involved in section 2 (Virology) of the VIZIER project are:
Dr. Eric Snijder, Associate Professor and Head of Nidovirus Group, has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers on the molecular biology of a variety of nidoviruses. His experimental studies involve the coronaviruses MHV and SARS-CoV and the arterivirus prototype EAV, which he developed into one of the best-studied nidovirus model systems. His main research topics are structure-function relationships of nidovirus replicative enzymes, nidovirus RNA synthesis, and the nidovirus replication complex. His research received extensive support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and his expertise has been sought after by many international virology journals and organizations. Dr. Snijder is also a member of the VIZIER Training and Dissemination Committee.
Linda Boomaars- van der Zanden and Inge Schaap are research technicians on the VIZIER project. They are responsible for nidovirus culture, RT-PCR amplification and cloning of replicase domains, sequence analysis of constructs and communication with a variety of VIZIER partners working with nidovirus targets produced at LUMC.
Jessika Zevenhoven-Dobbe, research technician of the Nidovirus group, has provided extensive support based on her experience working with a variety of nidoviruses over the past 10 years.
Clara Posthuma, postdoctoral fellow, was involved during the startup phase of the VIZIER section 2 activities at LUMC and then moved on to work on the virGil project.
LUMC Leiden, NL
