Leor Weinberger

Weinberger and his lab specialize in virology, with a specific focus on HIV/AIDS, human cytomegalovirus, and herpesvirus.[6] As stated on their website, the lab uses “mathematical & experimental approaches to decode the regulatory principles viruses use to select between alternate fates” and develop therapeutic targets and antiviral strategies based on those principles.[12]

Weinberger and his lab have been credited with the discovery of HIV’s intrinsic decision circuit.[1] Their 2005 paper in Cell showed that stochastic fluctuations in gene expression, or ‘noise’ can drive cell fate decisions enabling viral latency, which is recognized as a primary barrier to HIV cure.[13] The lab has since been able to identify similar stochastic processes in other viruses, such as a kind of herpesvirus called human cytomegalovirus, as published in a 2020 paper.[14] Weinberger and his lab are looking for ways to target the latency reservoir of viruses as a form of treatment.[15]

Weinberger's work has been referred to as "part of what some scientists are calling a 'renaissance' in viral therapy" by the San Francisco Chronicle.[16] According to Wired, Weinberger has pioneered research to combat HIV by creating "therapeutic interfering particles" or "TIPs". Weinberger first began testing this concept when he was in graduate school at Berkeley studying the biophysics of HIV.[17] As described on Weinberger’s lab website and in a pre-print research article, TIPs are engineered deletion mutants designed to piggyback on a virus and deprive the virus of replication material, thus reducing viral load.[12][18] TIPs replicate and co-evolve with a virus, making it a treatment that solves what Weinberger has called a “fundamental mismatch” between viruses and treatment: viruses evolve, vaccines do not.[17][19] TIPs also have the capacity to transmit along viral transmission routes, harnessing the power of virus “super spreaders” and transmitting the treatment to resource-limited and remote populations like communities in South Africa.[17] TIP research has been supported by the Department of Defense DARPA program, NIH/NIDA, and recently the Joint Warfighter Medical Research Program for a clinical trial.[20][7][21]