February 3, 2022

Micah Luftig – PI

I graduated from the Louisiana State University with a B.S. in Microbiology in 1998. During my undergraduate career, I worked on herpesvirus glycoproteins and virus entry. I then moved to Boston as a graduate student in the Program in Virology at Harvard Medical School. Initially, I worked in Dr. Don Wiley’s lab continuing the biochemical study of herpesvirus glycoproteins. My thesis research was in Dr. Elliott Kieff’s lab studying Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), where I identified the genetic requirements of NFkB activation by the viral oncoprotein, latent membrane protein 1. I received my Ph.D. in Virology in 2003, and went on to join the group of Dr. Andrea Carfi in the Department of Biochemistry at the Istituto di Ricerca di Biologia Molecolare (IRBM) “P. Angeletti” in Pomezia, Italy (outside of Rome). I was awarded an EMBO Long-Term Postdoctoral Fellowship for my structural studies on viral glycoproteins, and later solved the crystal structure of the HIV gp41 protein bound to the cross-neutralizing antibody D5 while at IRBM. In 2007, I began my independent laboratory as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University Medical Center. In 2017, I became co-Vice Chair of MGM with a purview including research and innovation efforts in the department, and in 2018, I was named Director of the Duke Center for Virology. Click here for a full biography.