Events

Melanie Ott’s lab studies viruses that infect humans, and applies the lessons learned to new and emerging viruses. Founded at the peak of the AIDS epidemic, the lab has since broadened its scope from HIV to other viruses with global relevance such as hepatitis C virus, Zika virus, and SARS-CoV-2. The Ott Lab combines broad expertise—in virology, cell biology, biochemistry, systems biology, and chromatin biology—with a diverse and highly collaborative approach. They focus on human-host factors restricting or enabling viral infections, and build and study complex primary cell systems, such as organoids, to model physiological conditions closely. Ott’s team leads the HOPE Collaboratory, an NIH-funded multidisciplinary research consortium dedicated to eradicating HIV. The Ott lab also leads projects on respiratory virus infections in NIH-funded UCSF QCRG AViDD and HPMI programs.

Register for the Livestream

About the Speaker

In Melanie Ott’s lab, the scientific goal is clear: We research the viruses of today to prepare for the viruses of tomorrow. Toward that end, she and her team are unraveling how viruses—including hepatitis C, HIV, SARS-CoV-2, and Zika—hijack human cells, and they are designing ways to thwart these pathogens.

A native of Germany, earned her medical degree in 1991 from the University of Frankfurt/Main. During her neurology residency in Frankfurt, she watched an overwhelming number of people with HIV die for lack of a treatment or cure. Seeking answers, Ott moved to the U.S. to study HIV in the laboratory and earned her PhD from the Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Medicine at Northwell Health. Following a five-year stint leading her own lab at the German Cancer Research Center, and working closely with virologist and Nobel laureate Harald zur Hausen, Ott returned to the U.S. in 2002 to join Gladstone Institutes.

Here, in addition to her laboratory investigations, Ott directs the global HOPE (HIV Obstruction by Programming Epigenetics) Collaboratory, which seeks to both silence and permanently remove HIV from the body. She also lends her scientific expertise to the council of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) and to the FDA’s Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee. For InvisiShield Technologies Ltd, a company developing therapeutics to prevent respiratory infections, she chairs the scientific advisory board.

Always a proponent of opening laboratory doors to any student interested in science, Ott founded the PUMAS summer internship program at Gladstone, for which she has received much recognition.