The People of OyaGen
Dr. Viviana Simon, Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Viviana Simon is a tenured Professor in the Department of Microbiology and the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Microbiology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS). She is also a Member of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute at ISMMS.
Dr. Simon’s research focuses on understanding the biological mechanisms that limit treatment and cure of HIV infection. The interplay between intracellular defenses and lentiviral escape strategies is a key element of HIV/AIDS pathogenesis. Dr. Simon’s work has significantly advanced our understanding of the mode of action of different HIV restriction factors and the corresponding lentiviral escape strategies. By taking advantage of the pronounced sequence diversity of HIV, her group identified specific interaction pairs and used this information to generate functional HIV/SIV Vif-APOBEC3 interface models. Lastly, her group also investigates how HIV re-wires innate immune responses and how the cellular environment controls HIV transcription and persistence. These studies have the potential to create novel HIV/AIDS treatment strategies aimed at long-lasting suppression of HIV and, ultimately, achieving a functional HIV/AIDS cure.
Dr. Simon holds several leadership roles such as chairing the Institutional Biosafety committee and the Institutional Oversight of Life Sciences Dual Use Research of Concern Committee at ISMMS. She is the Director of the weekly GHEPI seminar series and the Co-director of the Advanced Virology Class. She serves as a permanent member on the AIDS Molecular Cell Biology NIH/NIAID study section. Her research has been funded by NIH/NIAID since 2003.
Read more about Dr. Viviana Simon’s work –