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Abstract: This presentation describes cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) studies aimed at understanding (1) structural changes in the influenza virus haemagglutinin that mediate membrane fusion during virus infection and (2) integrated structural studies of a spumaretrovirus(foamy virus), an ancient subfamily of retroviruses, to gain insight into how they assemble, how they enter cells, and their relationship to other viruses.

Biography: Professor Peter Rosenthal is Principal Group Leader at The Francis Crick Institute and leads the Structural Biology of Cells and Viruses Laboratory. Peter studied physics at Harvard College and then obtained a PhD in the Harvard biophysics programme working on X-ray crystallography of influenza virus surface glycoproteins. He moved to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge to work on methods for high-resolution structure determination by single particle electron cryomicroscopy. He became a Programme Leader in the Division of Physical Biochemistry at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill, London and his laboratory joined the Crick Institute in 2015. His research program applies cryo-EM from the molecular to the cellular scale with a particular focus on the structure and assembly of lipid-enveloped viruses using single particle and tomographic approaches.