"Harnessing herpesvirus infection to probe roles of protein deamidation”

Dr. Pinghui Feng is a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, and the Inaugural Chair of the Section of Infection and Immunity, Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of University of Southern California. His previous faculty positions include Instructor at Harvard Medical School and Assistant professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Dr. Feng’s group investigates the roles of innate immune signaling pathways in infection and pathogenesis of human herpesviruses, Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) and herpes simplex viruses (HSV).

Recently, his group has uncovered pivotal roles of protein deamidation in infection and immunity. Protein deamidation is the simplest post-translational modification and interestingly is catalyzed by a group of key metabolic enzymes known as glutamine amidotransferases. Herpesviruses encode pseudoenzymes or bona fide deamidases to promote deamidation and regulate fundamental biological processes, thus providing excellent model systems to interrogate roles of protein damidation.

Currently, research in Dr. Feng’s laboratory is directed to probe the biological function of deamidation in coupling fundamental biological processes to metabolic status. Dr. Feng’s research is primarily supported by grants from NIDCR, NCI and NIAID.