Professor Andrew Firth

We are interested in the molecular biology of all sorts of RNA viruses - including both plant and animal viruses. We are especially interested in the many weird and wonderful mechanisms that RNA viruses use to express their genes, including the discovery of new 'hidden' genes in RNA virus genomes, and elucidation of novel mechanisms of regulating gene expression. Much of our work is motivated by comparative genomic analysis of virus genome sequence alignments as a route to identifying previously overlooked functional elements. Recent work has included identification of novel genes in astroviruses, enteroviruses and SARS-CoV-2, discovery and characterization of protein-stimulated ribosomal frameshifting in cardioviruses and arteriviruses and +1 frameshifting in influenza A virus, and studies of transcriptional slippage for gene expression in potyviruses. We are also interested in ribosome profiling (Ribo-seq), RNA-seq and Ribo-seq data analysis, novel virus discovery, and RNA structure and function.

See our website: http://www.firthlab.path.cam.ac.uk/index.html

Funding for our research comes from the Wellcome Trust, the European Research Council, and the Medical Research Council.

Research Associates : Dr Hazel Stewart , Dr Katherine Brown