The Hobbs Lab

The Hobbs lab studies the mechanisms by which cells inhibit viral replication and how viruses have evolved to overcome host defenses. We take a broad evolutionary approach to this question and use a combination of virology, immunology, and structural biology approaches to define general principles and specific biochemical mechanisms that are shared across bacterial and animal immunity.

 Specifically, we aim to

• Define conserved mechanisms that allow cells to detect viral infection

• Discover conserved mechanisms of viral immune evasion