Home| Non-Clinical Senior Lecturer in Virology |
Contact details:
| Tel: | +44 20 7882 8119 |
| Fax: | +44 20 7882 2181 |
| Email: | m.t.dittmar@qmul.ac.uk |
| Address: | Centre for Immunology and Infectious Disease |
Biography
Matthias T. Dittmar graduated in Biochemistry from University Frankfurt/M., Germany (1994) studying variability and pathogenicity of the envelope proteins of simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIV). After a post-doctoral time at the Institute of Cancer Research, London (1995-1997) he established his own research group at the Heinrich-Pette-Institute, Hamburg, Germany before moving to Heidelberg where he took up a lecturer position with the Medical Faculty at Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg, Germany.
In April 2007 he joint the Blizard Institute of Cell and Molecular Science, Centre for Immunology and Infectious Disease and continues his work on emerging drug resistance and viral fitness of HIV-1 and HIV-2 and the identification of novel cellular targets to interfere with virus-cell fusion.
1994 PhD in Biochemistry and Virology at University Frankfurt , Germany
1995-1997 Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Cancer Research, London , UK
1997-2000 Group leader (HIV entry group) at the Heinrich Pette Institute, Hamburg , Germany
2000-2007 Group leader and Lecturer for Experimental Virology, Medical Faculty of University Heidelberg , Germany
Research Activity
Viral fitness assays to characterize resistant and multi-resistant HIV-1/2
The relationship between sensitivity to antiviral drugs and viral fitness is of paramount importance in understanding the long term implications of clinical resistance. We have developed a novel recombinant virus assay to study entry inhibitor resistant HIV variants using a biologically relevant cell type, primary CD4 T-cells (Neumann et al.-2005, Lohrengel et al., 2005). This validated assay is currently being used to assess viral fitness of resistant and multi-resistant HIV variants from different subtypes circulating in East London and to screen for novel HIV entry inhibitors.
Inhibition of HIV replication through interference with virus-cell fusion- identification of novel cellular targets.
This project is directed towards adding novel anti-viral strategies to already existing strategies targeting early events in the infection of HIV (Hildinger et al., 2001, Daecke et al., 2005). These strategies were initially based on retroviral vectors for the transduction of T-cells. Recently we described a virus induced anti-viral state of infected cell dependent on the expression of the envelope cytoplasmic tail (Malinowsky et al., 2008) leading to a detailed identification of signaling events modulated through the cytoplasmic tail. After identification of novel cellular targets we are currently screening different compound libraries for drugs suitable to advance into pre-clinical testing.
Key Publications
- Malinowsky, K., Luksza, J., and Dittmar, M.T. (2008). Susceptibility to virus-cell fusion at the plasma membrane is reduced through expression of HIV gp41 cytoplasmic domains. Virology 376: 69-78
- Kaumanns, P., Hagmann, I., and Dittmar, M.T. (2006). Human TRIM5alpha mediated restriction of different HIV-1 subtypes and Lv2 sensitive and insensitive HIV-2 variants. Retrovirology 3:79 (6Nov2006)
- Lohrengel, S., Hermann, F., Hagmann, I., Oberwinkler, H., Scrivano, L., von Laer, D., and Dittmar, M.T. (2005). Determinants of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Resistance to Membrane-Anchored gp41-Derived Peptides. J. of Virology 79: 10237-10246.
- Neumann, T., Hagmann, I., Lohrengel, S., Heil, M.L., Derdeyn, C.A., Kräusslich, H.-G., and Dittmar, M.T. (2005). T20 insensitive HIV-1 from naive patients exhibits high viral fitness in a novel dual colour competition assay on primary cells. Virology 333: 251-262.
- Daecke, J., Fackler, O.T., Dittmar, M.T. and Kräusslich, H.-G. (2005). Involvement of clathrin mediated endocytosis in HIV-1 entry. J. of Virology 79: 1581-1594.
- Hildinger, M., Dittmar, M.T., Schult-Dietrich, P., Fehse, B., Schnierle, B., Thaler, S., Siegler, G., Welker, R., von Laer, D. (2001). A membrane-anchored peptide inhibits HIV entry. J. of Virology 75: 3038-3042.
