Susan Weiss

University of Pennsylvania, USA

Susan Weiss obtained her PhD in Microbiology from Harvard University working on paramyxoviruses and did postdoctoral training in retroviruses at University of California, San Francisco. She came to Penn as an Assistant Professor in 1980, and is currently Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Microbiology and Co-director of the Penn Center for Research on Coronaviruses and Other Emerging Pathogens at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She previously served as Associate Dean for Biomedical Postdoc Programs (2010-2019). She has worked on many aspects of coronavirus replication and pathogenesis over the last forty years, making contributions to understanding the basic biology as well as viral entry, organ tropism and virulence. This work focused for many years on the murine coronavirus (MHV) mouse model of hepatitis. More recently she has work on SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV and since 2020 also on SARS-CoV-2. Her work for the last ten years has focused on coronavirus interaction with the host innate immune response and viral innate antagonists of double-stranded RNA induced antiviral pathways. Her other research interests include activation and antagonism of the double-stranded RNA induced antiviral responses, with a focus on the oligoadenylate-ribonuclease L (OAS-RNase L) pathway, flavivirus- primarily Zika- virus-host interactions and pathogenic effects of host endogenous dsRNA.