The colloquium will also be streamed online.
Willem Vanderlinden, The University of Edinburgh
Invited by Prof. Lukas Milles
As part of the replication cycle, retroviruses insert their genome into the DNA of the host cell. This unique process, called integration, ensures stable maintenance, replication, and readout of viral DNA. Integration is therefore a high-priority target for antiretroviral drugs to treat diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and underlies the use of retroviruses as vectors in gene therapy applications. Despite the biomedical importance, how the viral integration machinery gains access to and efficiently reacts with cellular DNA remains poorly understood. In this talk, I will discuss how we use in vitro reconstitution and atomic force microscopy imaging approaches to unravel how the nuclear environment influences retroviral integration efficiency.