Computational Virology

We apply an array of computational methods to study various aspects of viruses. This includes (i) virus discovery from deep sequencing data to broaden our understanding of the diversity of viruses affecting humans and other organisms, (ii) phylogenetics to reconstruct the origin and evolution of different virus families, (iii) virus classification to group our complex knowledge about viruses into usable units, and (iv) virus-host interactions to analyze the interplay between viruses and the immune system and to explore whether certain viral infections can be linked to unexplained diseases like some types of human cancer. In most of these studies we follow an interdisciplinary approach through collaborations with virologists from Germany and abroad.

Ultimately, we envision to combine our insights on viruses and certain methodical aspects of these studies with those of our other projects related to different human cancers. We hope that this will promote synergy and amplify output and impact of these two lines of research.

© Chris Lauber

Involved scientists

• Chris Lauber

• Michael Seifert

Publications

Funding

• TU Dresden, basic funding