Robert Lanford, PhD

Dr. Robert Lanford, PhD, is currently the Director of the Southwest National Primate Research Center, one of seven NIH National Primate Research Centers. He is a Scientist at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center. Dr. Robert E. Lanford received a B.S. degree from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1974 and a Ph.D. in Virology from Baylor College of Medicine in 1979. He served as Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine until 1984 when he moved to the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (now Texas Biomedical Research Institute) to initiate programs on the use of nonhuman primates as models for human hepatitis infections. Dr. Lanford has published over 170 scientific papers and serves as a reviewer for several journals. His laboratory performs research on multiple hepatitis viruses HAV, HBV, HCV and GBV-B. One of the primary goals of his research program is to better understand the interactions of the virus with the host, and how these interactions influence either viral clearance or persistence and disease progression. His studies in the chimpanzee were the first to use total genome microarray analysis to examine viral-host interactions and the innate immune response to HCV. In collaboration with pharmaceutical companies, he has utilized the chimpanzee model of chronic HBV and HCV infections to evaluate efficacy of new antiviral therapies as the last preclinical step prior to human clinical trials. These studies contributed to the development of cocktails of antivirals that can now cure HCV infection in 12 weeks. Recently, Dr. Lanford has developed a primate model for liver cancer by the genetic engineering of primary baboon hepatocytes with activated baboon oncogenes and autologous transplantation of the cells to the liver of the immunocompetent hepatocyte donor. Efforts are ongoing in his laboratory to develop new nonhuman primate models for HBV research.