For a listing of the faculty, please select this link.

The faculty hold appointments at five institutions: The Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics (CBMG) at the University of Maryland, the Center for Biosystems Research (CBR) (at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute), the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (VetMED), the National Institutes of Health and the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

Both CBMG and CBR are on the University of Maryland campus, located in nearly adjacent buildings; the USDA Agricultural Research Service is located in Beltsville, MD, about 4 miles from the University of Maryland; and the NIH is located in Bethesda, MD, which is 14 miles from the University of Maryland. All institutions are connected by bus and/or metro service.

By combining faculty from different institutions, the Virology Training Program can offer one of the most diverse and unique virology specialization programs in the country. Students can select laboratories that study the smallest of pathogenic agents, prions and viroids, through the largest of the DNA viruses, the poxviruses. In addition, since all faculty participate in teaching their research subjects in the two semester course, Special Topics in Virology I and II, students will have an opportunity to learn about the full breadth of systems used to study viral replication and gene expression, a unique facet of this training program.

Faculty were selected to participate in the Virology Training Program by virtue of their outstanding contributions to fundamental aspects of virus replication/gene expression and vaccine development as well as their commitment to training students at the predoctoral and postdoctoral levels. Two of the faculty are members of the National Academy of Science (Moss and Wickner) and two are senior editors of the journal Virology (Simon, Moss). Drs. Simon and Culver study plus sense, ssRNA viruses that infect plants; Drs. Nuss, Dinman and Wickner study fungal dsRNA viruses; Drs. DeStefano and Green study plus sense, ssRNA viruses of animals; dsRNA viruses of animals are the specialty of Drs. Vikharia and Patton; and minus strand ssRNA animal viruses are studied by Drs. Samal and Heckert. Drs. Dinman, Moss and DeStefano also study the HIV retrovirus. Vaccine development based on knowledge that includes virus replication mechanisms is a major strength of the program, with Drs. Green, Heckert, Moss, Dinman, Samal, Patton and Vakharia active in this research area. All Virology Training Program faculty are funded through NIH, NSF, USDA, or intramural or other government programs. The thirteen faculty have grants or other funding totaling $4,424,866 in direct costs (2004) for a per lab average of $340,350.