Fumiaki Ito, PhD
Assistant Professor, Microbiology-Immunology
Research Program
- Associate Members
Cancer-Focused Research
My long-term goal is to develop a research program focused on studying the molecular mechanisms of viral infection and how oncogenic viruses reprogram host pathways to promote malignant progression. I apply advanced cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and other structural biology techniques to understand complex and dynamic mechanisms underlying how viruses manipulate and hijack host cells, as well as how the host cell's immune system responds to viral infection and cancer-associated cellular stress. During my Ph.D. training in Dr. Xiaojiang Chen's lab at USC, I developed expertise in structural biology and protein/nucleic acid biochemistry. While there, I started my decade-long research on the virus-restriction factor APOBEC family proteins. Through an integrated approach of X-ray crystallography and functional biochemistry, my studies revealed the structural basis of the anti-HIV activity of several key APOBEC3 members. These works served as a foundation for my subsequent works on the molecular interactions between human APOBEC3s and their viral antagonist HIV-1 Vif. To address the enigmatic question regarding the mechanistic basis of Vif-APOBEC3 interplay, which remained elusive for two decades, I learned skills in high-resolution cryo-EM and transmission electron microscopy as a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Dr. Hong Zhou at UCLA. This training resulted in the landmark determination of the atomic structures of HIV-1 Vif-APOBEC3G and Vif-APOBEC3H complexes, offering molecular details of the essential virus-host interfaces. I plan to leverage my experience and expertise to study a broader range of virus-host interactions, particularly those involved in viral antagonism and immune evasion, as well as mechanisms by which oncogenic viruses such as KSHV and HPV modulate host pathways linked to genome stability and cancer development. I further plan to develop a workflow to analyze their native complex structures using a novel structural proteomics approach. The long-term goal of my laboratory is to yield atomic-level molecular insights into virus infection and virus-driven oncogenesis, thus providing groundwork for future therapeutics for infectious diseases and virus-associated cancers.