Peter Tattersall, PhD
Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Genetics

Mentee:
Justin Paglino, MD

Dr. Tattersall’s research efforts are directed at understanding the molecular mechanisms by which mammalian parvoviruses target particular cell types, express their genes, take over their host cells and replicate their own DNA. He is working toward understanding and eventually controlling their target cell specificity and cytotoxicity, which will hopefully lead to their use as vectors for the expression of therapeutic genes in human cells, and to the exploitation of the viral non-structural gene products themselves as directed cancer cell death effectors. Dr. Tattersall’s research is supported by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health. He is the Principal Investigator of a $2.5 million NIH grant, Molecular Basis of Parvoviral Target Cell Specificity, as well as a predoctoral training grant in virology and is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.