Keith R. Jerome

Keith R. Jerome is an American virologist whose research focuses on viruses such as herpes simplex, HIV and hepatitis B that persist in their hosts. He published on the first known case of COVID-19 in the United States detecting SARS-CoV-2 in Washington State[1] and helped forge the nation's COVID-19 testing.[2][3][4] In 2021, Jerome and Alexander Greninger shared the Washington Innovator of the Year award for developing the laboratory based assay for detecting COVID-19.[5] He was senior author on a research article published in Science describing the cryptic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 alongside Trevor Bedford, Alexander Greninger, Jay Shendure, and Helen Chu.[6] Regarding the origin of SARS-CoV-2 he reported that the live market in Wuhan was more likely than a lab leak of the virus.[7]

Jerome studies the ways in which these viruses evade the immune system and potential therapies for these infections. Jerome and his colleagues study the uses of precision gene-editing tools like CRISPR/Cas9 to remove damaging viral genes that have tucked themselves into a person's genetic code or to insert genes that can protect cells from invading viruses. He has been working for years on research aimed at a cure for Herpes virus by using the DNA-cutting tools of gene therapy. Initial research showed these techniques could knock out small quantities of latent virus.[8] He and his colleagues are exploring this approach in combination with blood stem cell transplants as a means of curing HIV.