UF virologist Bloom awarded grant for research of herpes virus

David C. Bloom, Ph.D., an assistant professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of Florida College of Medicine, has been given a five-year, $400,000 Burroughs Wellcome Fund 2003 Investigators in Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award for his work investigating the herpes simplex virus.

Bloom's research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of how the herpes simplex virus establishes a latent infection in neurons and the molecular processes that enable the virus to reactivate in response to stress.

"That's one of the main problems with herpes simplex infection, that it's a recurrent disease," he said. "People can have repeating episodes of fever blisters or more serious oral infections whenever they get a stress response that causes the virus to come back out. If we can understand the mechanism and identify the cell factors that actually turn the virus on, we can potentially design very specific means of intervention."