Paul G. Ahlquist PhD

Dr. Ahlquist is also Paul J. Kaesberg Professor of Molecular Virology and Oncology in the Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Wisconsin–-Madison. Paul Ahlquist says, are the hot rods of the living world?-simple yet supercharged. Despite their bare-bones genomes, they can rev up host cells to make thousands to millions of viral copies. It's not surprising, then, that viruses cause some of the world's most menacing diseases, including AIDS, SARS, Ebola, hepatitis, and influenza. Moreover, they trigger 10-?15 percent of all cancers. To better deal with such infections, scientists need to learn how viruses take host cells hostage and how that process can be stopped. "If you understand the underlying mechanisms, you can rationally design interventions for more effective and diverse therapies," says Ahlquist, who studies the molecular underpinnings of viral reproduction in several RNA and DNA viruses.

One of Ahlquist's first major contributions was to develop broadly applicable ways to study viruses whose genes are fashioned from RNA. In most organisms, genes are made of DNA and are transcribed into RNA molecules that serve as templates for protein synthesis. Most viruses don't toe this line, because they use RNA for both genes and templates. But the best tools for manipulating and studying genes work only with DNA.