Editor-in-Chief

Brian Mahy is a Senior Scientist in the National Center for Infectious Diseases and was formerly Director of the Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases in the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia USA.

He began his career in virology as a post-doctoral fellow at the London Hospital Medical College in 1962, where he worked with murine retroviruses and lactate-dehydrogenase-elevating virus. He moved to the University of Cambridge in 1965 and remained there until 1984, teaching virology to medical students and carrying out a research programme on influenza viruses and paramyxoviruses. As Head of the Division of Virology he was also responsible for research programmes in other areas, especially herpesviruses and the role of p53 in cell transformation. During this period Dr. Mahy also spent one year (1973 - 74) as an Eleanor Roosevelt International Cancer Fellow in the laboratory of Drs. J. Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus at the University of California San Francisco, where he studied retroviruses, and one year (1980 - 81) as a Visiting Professor in the Institut fü Virologie und Immunobiologie with Drs. Volker ter Meulen and Stuart Siddell, where he studied coronaviruses.

In 1984 he became Director of the Animal Virus Research Institute, Pirbright, Surrey, UK and was responsible for research on exotic virus diseases of economic importance to the livestock industry, including foot-and-mouth, bluetongue, African swine fever, influenza A (fowl plague) and rinderpest. The Institute houses the World Reference Laboratory for foot-and-mouth disease, as well as EU reference centres for foot-and-mouth disease and rinderpest.

In 1989 Dr. Mahy moved to become Director of the Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, CDC in Atlanta. The Division houses ten World Health Organization Collaborating Centres for Reference and Research, on enteroviruses, viral hepatitis, surveillance, epidemiology and control of influenza, measles, respiratory virus diseases other than influenza, rotaviruses, rabies, rickettsial diseases, smallpox and other poxvirus infections, and special pathogens (viruses requiring containment at biosafety level 4 for their study).

Dr. Mahy is an elected Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He plays a full role in international activities in Virology, and in 1999 was elected President of the International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS). He is Editor of Virus Research, Journal of Medical Virology, and Reviews in Medical Virology, and serves on the editorial boards of several other journals. He has also played a major role in organising scientific meetings, most notably the series on Negative Strand Viruses which began in 1969 and will convene again in 2000 in Québec City for the 11th meeting. He is author/coauthor of more than 150 scientific publications on virology.

Brian W. J. Mahy, PhD ScD, Senior Scientist, Mailstop C12, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333, U.S.A., Tel: +404 728 0564, Fax: +404 728 0032.

"This website was edited by Brian WJ Mahy in his private capacity. No official support or endorsement by CDC is intended or should be inferred"