Dr. Anthony Leung Delivers 15th Annual Lundberg-Kienlen Lecture in Biomedical Research
Wednesday May 1, 2024
STILLWATER, Okla. — The Oklahoma Center for Respiratory and Infectious Diseases concluded its Spring 2024 Seminar series with guest speaker Anthony Leung Ph.D.
Dr. Anthony Leung is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at John Hopkins University. Dr. Leung was invited to give the 15th Annual Lundberg-Kienlen Lecture in Biomedical Research, a prestigious lecture series made possible by the generous support of the Lundberg-Kienlen endowment to the College of Veterinary Medicine, Oklahoma State University.
Dr. Leung's research focuses on how cells control and regulate RNA, a crucial molecule that carries genetic information, and how this regulation affects the development of diseases such as cancer, neurological disorders, and viral infections.
Dr. Leung's lecture was titled "Targeting PARP and ADP - ribosylation: New Battle Ground of Virus Infection".
“(When) you want to make a new drug for virus infection and you want to find promising targets, I think PARP and the involved pathways could be such new targets,” Dr. Leung explained. “The virus and the human are fighting and that is the battle ground.”
PARP is a protein (enzyme) found in our cells, it stands for poly-ADP ribose polymerase. It helps damaged cells to repair themselves but also has several other cellular functions.
“What I study is a class of family called PARP and what they do is add a chemical tag to warn the system, saying that there could be a virus infection in our system. What the virus does is it has a way to take out those tags,” explained Dr. Leung.
Dr. Leung provided a simple analogy to help the audience understand his studies: “The human is ringing the alarm bell, but the virus is stealing the alarm bell,” said Dr. Leung “What we are doing now is to develop a drug so that the virus cannot steal the alarm bell.”
Dr. Leung's enthusiasm for his research is evident as he explains the complex interplay between the PARP pathway and viral infections. His ability to break down intricate biological processes into understandable terms, and his use of analogies, demonstrates his commitment to making his research accessible to a broader audience.