Yuntao Wu | Professor
George Mason University

Professor Yuntao Wu is a tenured full professor at George Mason University’s Center for Infectious Disease Research. He has dedicated over 35 years to virology research, focusing on HIV infection in the past two decades. Currently, he co-directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research at Mason. Dr. Wu has published extensively in the HIV/AIDS area. His work as an HIV virologist and immunologist includes significant contributions to understanding HIV-1 interaction with the human immune system, notably discovering a viral early process of pre-integration transcription in blood resting CD4 T cells (Science, 2001, 293:1503-6), which has stimulated the development of non-integrating lentiviral vectors. His lab also discovered a function of HIV-mediated chemokine co-receptor signaling in the activation of an actin regulator, cofilin, in CD4 T cells, which promotes HIV infection and pathogenesis (Cell, 2008, 134:782; Science Advances, 2019, 5:eaat7911). Recently, he also co-discovered a new antiviral host protein, PSGL-1, and elucidated a novel mechanism by which PSGL-1 hinders virus attachment to target cells (Nature Microbiology, 2019, 4:8132; PNAS, 2020, 117:9537). In addition to studying HIV-host interaction, Dr. Wu is also interested in developing new technologies for HIV cure or functional cure. For example, he has developed an HIV Rev-dependent lentiviral vector for targeting HIV reservoirs (Retrovirology, 2007, 4:12). Recently, his study has been shown that injection of the Rev-dependent lentiviral particles can lead to the reduction of viral rebound upon ART termination in an SIV/rhesus macaque model; one of the treated animals, KC50, controlled plasma and CNS viremia to an undetectable level most of the time for over two years after ART termination (Gene Therapy, 2024, DOI: 10.1038/s41434-024-00467-9). Dr. Wu is also a recipient of multiple NIH grants in the past 25 years. He serves as the editor-in-chief of Current HIV Research and is an editor for multiple journals in HIV, virology, and immunology. He is also a frequent grant reviewer for the NIH and numerous scientific journals.