Mission: The Bell Lab will focus on elucidating host-viral interactions at the cellular and systemic levels to develop antiviral therapeutics and next generation vaccines. Emerging negative strand RNA viruses that spill over from animal reservoirs, primarily viruses within the Phenuiviridae and Arenaviridae families, will be studied as a part of the lab’s One Health approach. The lab’s goal is to understand and identify critical host factors necessary for viral replication, and the Bell lab will do this through a proteomics and transcriptomics analysis pipeline.
The lab also studies spatial and temporal relationships of the underlying molecular events associated with disease within different target tissues. Using a combination of approaches including spatial gene expression technology as well as reverse phase protein microarray (RPPA) or mass spectrometry, the lab looks at which host pathways are altered in space and time in rodent animal models throughout the course of infection. This allows for a better understanding of the disease course, informing antiviral strategies. Antiviral therapeutic evaluation will primarily consist of small molecule inhibitors that target essential host-based events for their therapeutic potential.
