Prof. Peter Sebo, PhD: "Why whooping cough is back and the Yin and the Yang of its adenylate cyclase toxin"

Wednesday, September 20, 2017, 02.00 pm, Hygiene Institute, Seminar Room 3, Kinderspitalgasse 15, Vienna IX

COLLOQUIUM IN PATHOPHYSIOLOGY, INFECTIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY

» Invitation

Peter Sebo, Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Bacterial Pathogens, Institut of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Prag, started to work with Bordetella pertussis in September 1990 as a fresh postdoc, training with Agnes Ullmann at Institut Pasteur in Paris. His early seminal contribution was the development of the first reconstituted system for expression of a biologically active adenylate cyclase toxin (ACT) in E. coli. This opened for a wealth of studies on the molecular mechanism of action of the toxin and its role in whooping cough pathogenesis and suppression of host responses. ACT is now also under evaluation as novel pertussis vaccine antigen and as a tool for antigen delivery into dendritic cells and eliciting of CD8+ T cell immune responses (phase II clinical trials for treatment of HPV-induced cervical precancerous lesions completed in summer 2016).

Peter was appointed as a group leader at the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague in April 1995. His research interests mainly focus on molecular mechanisms of bacterial virulence and protein toxin action, with particular emphasis on Bordetella pertussis and adenylate cyclase toxin action an vaccine development. Peter also is a professor of Microbiology at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague and he published over 120 peer-reviewed papers and reviews in the field.

(H=34 on WoS, H=38 on Google Scholar).

Host: Irma Schabussova