Prof. Dr. Chris Lauber participates in RESIST research project A6.

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

Recommended Links

For further information about Prof. Lauber’s scientific work please check the following links:

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

Contact

  Prof. Dr. Chris Lauber
  Institute for Medical Informatics and Biometry (IMB), TU Dresden
  TWINCORE, Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research GmbH
Feodor-Lynen-Str. 7
30625 Hannover
  +49 511 220027-202
  Chris.Lauber
@twincore.de