Vincent Racaniello

Vincent Racaniello Ph.D. is Higgins Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at Columbia University Medical Center. He has been studying viruses for over 40 years, starting in 1975 when he entered the Ph.D. program in Biomedical Sciences at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York. His thesis research, in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Palese, was focussed on influenza viruses. In 1979 he joined the laboratory of Dr. David Baltimore at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he did postdoctoral work on poliovirus. In 1982 he joined the faculty in the Department of Microbiology at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York City. There he established a laboratory to study viruses and to train other scientists to become virologists. Over the years his laboratory has studied a variety of viruses including poliovirus, echovirus, enterovirus 70, rhinovirus and hepatitis C virus. As principal investigator of his laboratory, Prof. Racaniello oversees the research that is carried out by Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows. He also teaches virology to graduate students as well as medical, dental, and nursing students. Professor Racaniello is passionate about teaching virology to the World. His virology lectures can be found on YouTube. He blogs at virology blog, produces the podcast ‘This Week in Virology’ and has co-authored the textbook Principles of Virology. He regularly posts about viruses on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.