The Center for Virus Research (CVR)
The University of California at Irvine
3221 McGaugh Hall
Irvine, CA 92697-3906
Phone: 949.824.9314
Fax: 949.824.9437
Services:
Advanced Technology and Resources
The Center for Virus Research
Directed by Dr. Luis P. Villarreal
Oversight committee chaired by Dr. Bert Semler.
Established in July, 2000 as an Organized Research Unit
within the University of California, Irvine.
The Center for Virus Research (CVR) is an Organized Research Unit (ORU) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) campus that seeks to foster interdisciplinary scholarship, training and research among virologists and other faculty.
The overall goal of the CVR is to use viruses to develop interdisciplinary collaborations and studies founded in molecular virology. The CVR provides both the administrative infrastructure as well as training and common facilities needed for this type of interdisciplinary research.
Research on viruses provides a biological and technological foundation from which much has been discovered concerning the basic molecular processes of organisms. Viruses supply some of the most useful experimental models for disease, cancer, immunity, and genetic systems of gene control. In addition, viral-based technology is being vigorously pursued and developed in the context of gene therapy and is teaching us much about the control of cellular processes. With the growing worldwide threat of emerging viral diseases, interest in virus research at all levels has intensified and has taken on a new global perspective. Previously separate disciplines such as molecular biology, pathogenesis, evolutionary biology neurology, and radiological sciences can now be readily linked by virus research. Such research pathways provide a highly interdisciplinary character to our unit: the Center for Virus Research.
The CVR is also committed to advanced post-graduate training. In addition to our shared facilities and the seminar and symposia series, the CVR oversees two training grants. Since graduate training in virology encompasses six departments in three schools, the CVR has also become the focus and administrative point for the organization of graduate virology courses and the virology track of the Combined Graduate Program in Molecular Biology Genetics and Biochemistry.