Employee Testimonial - Alison McBride, Ph.D., Senior Investigator, DNA Tumor Virus Section, Division of Intramural Research

Tell us about your role at NIAID and what a typical day at work looks like for you?

My primary role is to lead my research team. We meet frequently to discuss experiments and projects. Sometimes I directly help with cell culture, microscopy, or other experiments.

What is your favorite part of your job? What excites you most about coming to work?

• New data! 
• Witnessing scientists in my team making a novel discovery or giving a great presentation! 
• Having a paper accepted.

Are there any special or unique projects that you are working on?

I am passionate about organizing information and making it available to all. This inspired me to establish the Papillomavirus Episteme (PaVE) (episteme is the ancient Greek word for knowledge) in collaboration with the NIAID Bioinformatics and Computational Biosciences Branch. PaVE hosts uniformly curated and annotated DNA and protein sequences for all papillomavirus genomes (727 genomes so far) as well as tools to analyze these sequences. PaVE is used by researchers and clinicians worldwide and has become a household name in the HPV field.

Tell us about your career journey

I am from Scotland. My B.Sc. degree is from the University of Glasgow, and this is where I was first inspired by the study of viruses. Each class and journal club were taught by renowned virologists, and we participated in their labs’ research projects. Excitingly, at the time we were just beginning to understand how human genes were regulated, but it was possible to completely decipher the regulatory circuit of viruses. Next, I obtained a Ph.D from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund/Imperial College studying Epstein-Barr virus. This was in the heyday of tumor virus research leading to discoveries such as the p53 protein. After graduating, I came to the NIH as a postdoctoral fellow to study HPV in the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for a couple of years. I was very lucky and had opportunities to stay longer and eventually apply for a tenure-track position in the Laboratory of Viral Diseases in NIAID in 1994. I am still here and I still study HPV. That seems a long time to study one type of virus, but papillomaviruses are remarkable as they have coevolved with their hosts for millions of years and hijack many the key pathways and biological processes of the human host cell. The HPV life cycle has much more to teach us about human cell biology. HPVs cause low level persistent infection in the dividing lower layers of the epidermis (skin) while producing virus particles in the outer layers of cells that normally slough off naturally. Unfortunately, sometimes persistent infection with HPV can lead to the development of cancer, and HPV infection is responsible for almost 5% of human cancers.

How has NIAID helped your professional growth, development, and career goals?

I feel very fortunate to have had leaders and supervisors that valued and supported my research program.

What are some benefits at NIAID that you enjoy?

One of the great resources at NIAID is the Research Technologies Branch (RTB). The RTB provides cutting edge technologies and expertise to research labs. For example, my own research group has benefitted greatly from the expertise of the Biological Imaging section and the NIAID Collaborative Bioinformatics Resource.

Do you have any advice to offer others who might be considering working at NIAID?

Don’t hesitate; you too might stay for 30 years!

Is there any other interesting information you would like to highlight?

In my spare time I am a food gardener, a native plant cultivator, and a forester. I have a garden plot in Rock Creek Park, and my own small patch of forest in the Appalachian Mountains. I am growing American Chestnut trees with hopes of evading chestnut blight.

Reference to Relevant Program Content

Papillomavirus Episteme (PaVE)