Paul Ahlquist is a professor of oncology, molecular virology and plant pathology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also the leader of the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center's Human Cancer Virology program. Dr. Ahlquist received his PhD in biophysics from UW-Madison. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a National Institute of Health MERIT award winner, and was recently named lead scientist for virology at the Morgridge Institute for Research, the private portion of the new Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery on the UW-Madison campus. Dr. Ahlquist's research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of virus replication, host interactions, and oncogenesis. Examples of his laboratory's recent studies include how certain RNA viruses dramatically remodel cellular membranes to create new organelles to replicate their RNA genomes; novel host functions and antiviral targets in the replication pathways of HIV, influenza virus, and hepatitis B virus—the major cause of liver cancer worldwide; and contributions of human papillomavirus and Epstein-Barr virus to human cancers. These studies integrate molecular genetics, biochemistry, imaging, computational biology, and other approaches.
