Dr. Volker Thiel has studied the genome expression of human and animal coronaviruses for over 10 years. He is acknowledged as a world expert in the development and application of systems for coronavirus reverse genetics. His research focuses on coronavirus polyprotein processing, replication, discontinuous transcription and multigene expression vector development. Dr. Thiel started working on coronaviruses in Professor Siddell's laboratory in Würzburg, Germany, where he developed a coronavirus reverse genetic system that is based on the use of vaccinia virus as a vector for stably maintaining full-length coronavirus cDNA clones. After Professor Siddell moved to the University of Bristol, Dr Thiel established his own laboratory. His research has contributed to the elucidation of coronavirus polyprotein processing pathways and the identification of gene products involved in coronavirus discontinuous transcription. He has also developed coronavirus genomes into expression vectors for multiple foreign genes and contributed to the molecular analysis of SARS-CoV genome expression. In July 2003 he joined the research department of the Cantonal Hospital in St. Gallen, Switzerland, where he continues his coronavirus research with a particular focus on the analysis of coronavirus genome expression using replicon RNAs.

Dr. Klara Kristin Eriksson has studied molecular biology at the university of Stockholm, Sweden. During her studies she worked in the group of Prof. Henrik Garoff at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on the development and biochemical characterization of retroviral vectors. After having graduated from the university in 2001, Klara started the work for a PhD degree in Biochemistry under the supervision of Dr. Maurizio Molinari and Prof. Ari Helenius at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. Here she studied folding and maturation of viral (e.g. Influenza-HA, VSV-G and SFV p62 and E1) and cellular proteins (e.g. b-secretase). In 2004, after she had got her doctoral degree, Klara joined the group of Dr. Volker Thiel in St. Gallen, Switzerland, to develop a reverse genetic system for SARS and to study coronavirus genome expression using reverse genetics in the context of the SARS-DTV consortium.

Selected publications of Partner 9:

Thiel V., Ivanov K.A., Putics A., Hertzig T., Schelle B., Bayer S., Weissbrich B., Snijder E.J., Rabenau H., Doerr H.W., Gorbalenya A.E., and Ziebuhr J. 2003. Mechanisms and enzymes involved in SARS coronavirus genome expression. J. Gen. Virol. 84:2305-2315.
Thiel V., Karl N., Schelle B., Disterer P., Klagge I., and Siddell, S.G. 2003. Multigene RNA vector based on coronavirus transcription. J. Virol. 77:9790-9798.
Snijder E.J., Bredenbeek P.J., Dobbe J.C., Thiel V., Ziebuhr J., Poon L.L., Guan Y., Rozanov M., Spaan W.J.M., and Gorbalenya A.E. 2003. Unique and conserved features of genome and proteome of SARS-coronavirus, an early split-off from the coronavirus group 2 lineage. J. Mol. Biol. 331:991-1004.
Thiel V., Herold J., Schelle B., and Siddell S.G. 2001. Infectious RNA transcribed in vitro from a cDNA copy of the human coronavirus genome cloned in vaccinia virus. J. Gen. Virol. 82:1273-1281.
Thiel V., Herold J., Schelle B., and Siddell, S.G. 2001. Viral replicase gene products suffice for coronavirus discontinuous transcription. J. Virol. 75:6676-6681.

Dr. Volker Thiel
Volker.Thiel@kssg.ch

Dr. Klara Kristin Erikson
KlaraKristin.Eriksson@kssg.ch