Xioafeng Zhou, PhD, Assistant Professor and a long-time research fellow in Bethany Moore’s Lung Immunobiology Lab at University of Michigan, was awarded the HHV-6 Foundation’s “Young Investigator” award for his important contributions relating to the role of HHV-6 and EBV in “idiopathic” pneumonia in transplant patients, as well as the role of murine roseolovirus reactivation in their murine bone marrow transplant model.
Xioafeng Zhou, PhD with Danielle Zerr, MD
Xiaofeng’s recent work was published in the Amercan Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, and was accompanied by an editorial.
The paper, entitled “First-Onset Herpesviral Infection and Lung Injury in Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation” showed that the first-onset herpesvirus infection of EBV or HHV-6 within 100 days after stem cell transplantation increases the risk of pulmonary complications including idiopathic pneumonia syndrome.
Zhou also showed that murine roseolovirus, the homolog of HHV-6/7, can be reactivated after murine bone marrow transplant, resulting in increased acute GVHD and a syndrome similar to idiopathic pneumonia.