My Research Interest in RESIST |
Each person carries millions of small changes in his or her genome that define who we are but which also can make us more susceptible to diseases. We are interested in computationally dissecting the complex interplay of this genetic variation in order to identify those changes that are associated with course or severity of disease. Within RESIST we closely collaborate with Gesine Hansen and Thomas Pietschmann with the aim to uncover such genetic determinants for severe infection with the human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) among young children.
In addition, we want to understand whether the human virome constitutes another factor that influences infection susceptibility. We have recently developed a high-performance computing workflow for the identification of viral genomes in sequencing data that we will use to characterize the virome composition of a large collection of samples from diseased and healthy individuals. Ultimately, we aim at associating known or newly discovered viruses to diseases with unexplained cause.
Prof. Lauber about his scientific work
Prof. Dr. Chris Lauber – Curriculum Vitae
Current Position
Since 6/2020 Professor (W1) of Computational Virology, Institute of Experimental Virology, TWINCORE, MHH
Undergraduate and Postgraduate Training
2007 Diplom Bioinformatics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
2012 PhD, Leiden University, the Netherlands (supervisor: Prof. A. E. Gorbalenya)
Academic and Research Posts
2007 – 2012 PhD student, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands
2012 – 2013 Postdoctoral fellow, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands
2013 – 2018 Postdoctoral fellow, Institute for Medical Informatics and Biometry, University of Technology Dresden, Germany
2019 – 2020 Data scientist, Lipotype GmbH, Dresden, Germany
Since 2017 Postdoctoral fellow (secondary employment), German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany
Other Scientific Roles
Referee of numerous journals (Nature Medicine, PNAS, NAR, MBE, PLoS Pathogens, …)
Since 2016 Editoral board member of Virology
Since 2016 member of the Polyomavirus Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV)
Since 2017 member of the Nidovirus Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV)
Awards and Prizes
2013 NBIC Young Investigator Award for best PhD thesis, the Netherlands
2013 PLoS Computational Biology T-shirt design winner

10 Selected Publications (of > 30 original publications)
Gorbalenya, Baker, Baric, de Groot, Drosten, Gulyaeva, Haagmans, Lauber, Leontovich, Neuman, Penzar, Perlman, Poon, Samborskiy, Sidorov, Sola, Ziebuhr ∙ The species Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus: classifying 2019-nCoV and naming it SARS-CoV-2. ∙ Nature Microbiology 2020; 5:536
Lauber, Seifert, Bartenschlager, Seitz. ∙ Discovery of highly divergent lineages of plant-associated astro-like viruses sheds light on the emergence of potyviruses ∙ Virus Research 2019; 260:38-48 ∙ special issue Virus Bioinformatics
Lauber*, Seitz*, Mattei, Suh, Beck, Herstein, Börold, Salzburger, Kaderali, Briggs, Bartenschlager ∙ Deciphering the origin and evolution of hepatitis B viruses by means of a family of non-enveloped fish viruses ∙ Cell Host & Microbe 2017; 22:387-399 ; * equal contribution
Moens, Krumbholz, Ehlers, Zell, Johne, Calvignac-Spencer, Lauber ∙ Biology, evolution, and medical importance of polyomaviruses: An update ∙ Infection, Genetics and Evolution 2017; 54:18-38
Lauber*, Kazem*, Kravchenko, Feltkamp, Gorbalenya ∙ Interspecific adaptation by binary choice at de novo polyomavirus T antigen site through accelerated codon-constrained Val-Ala toggling within an intrinsically disordered region ∙ Nucleic Acids Research 2015; 43:4800 ;* equal contribution
Lauber*, Vieyres*, Terczynska-Dyla, Anggakusuma, Dijkman, Gad, Akhtar, Geffers, Vondran, Thiel, Kaderali, Pietschmann, Hartman ∙ Transcriptome analysis reveals a classical interferon signature induced by IFNL4 in primary cells ∙ Genes and Immunity 2015; 16:414 ;* equal contribution
Lauber, Goeman, Parquet, Nga, Snijder, Morita, Gorbalenya ∙ The Footprint of Genome Architecture in the Largest Genome Expansion in RNA Viruses ∙ PLoS Pathogens 2013; 9:e003500
Lauber, Gorbalenya ∙ Toward genetics-based virus taxonomy: comparative analysis of a genetics-based classification and the taxonomy of picornaviruses ∙ Journal of Virology 2012; 86:3905 ∙ J.Virol. spotlight feature
Lauber, Gorbalenya ∙ Partitioning the genetic diversity of a virus family: approach and evaluation through a case study of picornaviruses ∙ Journal of Virology 2012; 86:3890 ∙ J.Virol. spotlight feature ∙ recommended by the Faculty of 1000
Nga*, Parquet*, Lauber*, Parida, Nabeshima, Yu, Thuy, Inoue, Ito, Okamoto, Ichinose, Snijder, Morita, Gorbalenya∙ Discovery of the first insect nidovirus, a missing evolutionary link in the emergence of the largest RNA virus genomes ∙ PLoS Pathogens 2011; 7:e1002215; * equal contribution
