The University of Regensburg, founded in 1962, is a public academic institution comprising a total of twelve different faculties that cover all major subjects in the arts and sciences including molecular biology and medicine. The Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene is embedded in the Faculty of Medicine while having strong links to the molecular biology sections in the Faculty of Natural Sciences. translated into novel diagnostic and therapeutic applications including antiviral vaccines (e.g., candidate vaccines directed against HIV and EBV).

This institute is a WHO collaborating center, internationally renowned for its basic research in bacteriology and virology, which has been continuously

Dr. Michael Nevels

Dr. Michael Nevels received his PhD degree (“summa cum laude”) in molecular biology and virology from the University of Regensburg. In 2000 he was among the first to be awarded an Emmy-Noether young investigator fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG). He received four years of postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Prof. Thomas Shenk at Princeton University, USA working on basic aspects of HCMV virus-host cell interactions. After that Dr. Nevels joined the Medical Microbiology Department in Regensburg (director Prof. Hans Wolf) which has a long-standing tradition in the field of basic and applied herpesvirus research. There he built up a research team focusing on molecular virus-host cell interactions relevant to HCMV infection and disease. Specifically, this group identified several novel mechanisms through which HCMV escapes intracellular innate immune functions including chromatin-based transcriptional repression (histone deacetylation) and IFN-induced anti-viral signalling. His work has been published in leading virological and interdisciplinary international journals including J. Virol. and Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. These findings are currently translated into innovative anti-viral intervention concepts that involve both viral and cellular molecular targets. Dr. Nevels’ work has been continuously funded by intra- and extramural national grants.

Relevant publications/patents

• Nevels M, Täuber B, Wolf H, Dobner T: „Hit-and-run“ transformation by adenovirus oncogenes. J Virol.75:3089-94. (2001)
• Brune W, Nevels M, Shenk, T: Murine cytomegalovirus m41 open reading frame encodes a golgi-localized anti-apoptotic protein. J Virol.77:11633-43. (2003)
• Nevels M, Brune W, Shenk, T: SUMOylation of the human cytomegalovirus 72-kilodalton IE1 protein facilitates expression of the 86-kilodalton IE2 protein and promotes viral replication. J Virol. 78:7803-12. (2004).
• Nevels M, Paulus C, Shenk T: Human cytomegalovirus immediate-early 1 protein facilitates viral replication by antagonizing histone deacetylation. (2004). Proc Natl Acad Sci USA.101:17234-9. (2004)
• Paulus C, Krauss S, Nevels M: A human cytomegalovirus inhibitor of type I interferon-dependent signal transducer and activator of transcription signaling. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA.103:3840-5. (2006)
  

Contact:

Dr. Michael Nevels
University of Regensburg
Tel.: +49 941 944 4640
Fax: +49 941 944 4645
E-Mail: michael.nevels@klinik.uni-regensburg.de
Website: www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/Medizin/MMH/index