Christine O'Connor

Infection Biology, Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute
Cleveland, Ohio, United States

Christine O’Connor, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute in Infection Biology. She obtained her PhD in Microbiology in 2006 from the University of Virginia, where she studied the gammaherpesvirus, KSHV/HHV8. She continued herpesvirus research, completing two post-doctoral fellowships at Princeton University with Tom Shenk and the Cleveland Clinic with Eain Murphy, focusing on cytomegalovirus (CMV)-encoded GPCRs and their influence on both lytic and latent CMV infection. Prior to joining the faculty at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. O’Connor spent two years at the University at Buffalo-SUNY as an Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology. Work in the O’Connor Lab is aimed at understanding the mechanisms underlying CMV latency and reactivation, with a particular interest in the contributions of the viral-encoded GPCRs to these phases of infection and how they impact downstream disease, including glioblastoma. Dr. O'Connor's lab is interested in understanding how CMV influences the glioblastoma tumor microenvironment. Specifically, her group is interogating the role the CMV GPCRs have in influencing tumor progression.