• The healthcare costs of caring for affected children are >$4 billion/year in the US alone. Following infection, HCMV persists for life in the face of the strongest immune response produced to any infectious agent. To survive, HCMV dedicates most of its genome (it is the largest human virus) to manipulating the host immune response.
  • Our studies point to orchestrated modulation of host proteins both within [1], and around (extracellular environment), the infected cell. This study seeks to be the first to provide high-resolution analysis and description of all soluble proteins produced by HCMV-infected cells (the secretome), as a foundation to determine how this affects clinical disease.
  • It will also inform on the impact of genetically manipulating HCMV, which has been proposed as a vaccine vector for HIV and tuberculosis following cure or protection against these diseases in Rhesus models using RhCMV vectors [2,3].