Virology Journal

Featured Review

Host-hijacking and planktonic piracy: how phages command the microbial high seas.

Microbial communities living in the oceans, where nutrients are limited across great swathes, are major drivers of global bio-geochemical cycles. As viruses have by necessity hijacked microbial cells, this review by Warwick-Dugdale et al. evaluates the mechanisms used by bacteriophages to reconfigure host metabolism to maximise their own reproduction.

Linfa Wang, Editor-in-Chief

Prof Wang is the director of the Programme in Emerging Infectious Diseases at Duke-NUS Medical School, and an honorary professor at the University of Melbourne and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is an international leader in the field of emerging zoonotic viruses and virus-host interaction, specialising in bat-borne viruses. After completing his Bachelor's degree in 1982 at the East China Normal University, he went on to obtain his PhD at the University of California, Davis. In 1990, he joined the CSIRO, Australian Animal Health Laboratory where he played a leading role in identifying bats as the natural host of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus. 

Prof Wang's work has been recognized internationally through various international awards, numerous invited speeches at major international conferences, many top scientific publications, five patents and many invited book chapters. He holds a number of honorary positions and memberships and has received numerous awards such as the 2014 Eureka Prize for Research in Infectious Diseases. In 2010, Prof Wang was elected as a Fellow of Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in recognition of his expertise in new and emerging diseases.