Tun-Hou Lee, D.Sc.

Professor of Virology
Dept. of Immunology & Infectious Diseases
Harvard School of Public Health
651 Huntington Avenue, FXB 305
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: (617) 432-1332
Fax: (617) 739-8348
e-mail: tunhoule@hsph.harvard.edu

Dr. Lee's major research interests are virus-specific antigens and their association with disease manifestations, viral replication, and host-virus interactions, with particular focus on human and related primate retroviruses. Dr. Lee is now focusing on the modification of the antigenicity of HIV envelope protein for vaccine development. His work has contributed to the development of serologic testing for the human leukemia virus (HTLV-I) and HIV. He was the first to identify the envelope gene products of HTLV-I, HTLV-II, and HIV, and demonstrated that the envelope antibody is the most important marker for screening individuals for infection with the human retroviruses. This information became the basis for serologic tests for blood bank screening. He also identified the putative transforming protein of HTLV-I, which was also the first observation of a retrovirus protein linked to a cancer that was not an oncogene product. Dr. Lee has also worked to identify the immune response to HIV envelope protein and outcome of HIV infection. His work on HIV envelope protein revealed that an association exists between progress to AIDS and the lack of certain envelope antibodies. Dr. Lee has been a recipient of the junior investigator award from the Leukemia Society of America and the Swedish Medical Research Council postdoctoral fellowship award.

Selected Publications

Wang, W.-K., Dudek, T., Essex, M., and Lee, T.-H. Involvement of V3 in CCR5 Coreceptor Utilization: Prophylactic and Therapeutic Implications. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (in press).

Wang, W.K., Dudek, T., Zhao, Y-J., Brumblay, H., Essex, M., Lee T-H. CCR-5 Co-receptor Utilization Involves a Highly Conserved Arginine Residue of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 gp120. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 1998;95: 5740-5745.

Lee, T-H. Acquired Immunodieficiency Disease Vaccines: Design and Development. In: AIDS, Etiology, Diagnonsis, Treatment and Prevention, 4th ed., DeVita, V.T. Jr., Hellman, S., Rosenberg, S.A., Curran, J., Essex, M., and Fauci, A.S., eds. J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, pp. 605-616 (1997).

Wang, W.K., Mayer, K.H., Essex, M., and Lee, T-H. Sequential Change of Cysteine Residues in Hypervariable Region 1 of Glycoprotein 120 in Primary HIV Type 1 Isolates of Subytype B. AIDS Res. Hum. Retroviruses 1997;12: 1195-1197.

Wang W-K, Essex M, McLane MF, Mayer KH, Hsieh C-C, Brumblay HG, Seage G, and Lee T-H. Pattern of gp120 sequence divergence linked to a lack of clinical progression in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection. Proc Nat Acad Sci 1996;93:6693-97.

Wang WK, Essex M, and Lee TH. Uncommon gp120 Cysteine residues found in primary HIV-1 isolates. AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses 1995;11:185-188.

Wang WK, Essex M, and Lee TH. Highly conserved aspartic acid residue between hypervariable regions 1 and 2 of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gp120 is important for early stages of virus replication. J Virol 1995;69:538-542.

Yu X, McLane MF, Ratner O, O'Brien W, Collman R, Essex M, and Lee TH. Killing of primary CD4+ T cells by non-syncytium-inducing macrophage-tropic human immunodeficiency virus type 1. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1994; 91:10237-10241.