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Perlman named to Mark Stinski Chair in Virology

Date: Monday, June 15, 2020

Stanley Perlman, photoStanley Perlman, MD, PhD, physician and professor of microbiology and immunology in the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, has been appointed to the Mark Stinski Chair in Virology.  

The Stinski Chair was initially created in 2010 as the endowed chair in immunology. In 2015, the chair was named after Stinski, who developed and commercialized the cytomegalovirus promoter, a tool to promote the expression of proteins that are important in the production of vaccines and therapeutic drugs. 

The Mark Stinski Chair honors individuals who have positively contributed to the field of immunology. Perlman has been studying coronaviruses for nearly 38 years, including those that caused the SARS and MERS outbreaks. Today, he is considered one of the world’s leading coronavirus experts. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Perlman was one of only 10 full-time coronavirus virologists in the world. In February, he published an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine about coronaviruses, and he’s been interviewed about the pandemic by national news outlets such as The New York Times and ABC News.

Perlman is using his experience to study COVID-19 and explore potential treatments. A UI research team, in collaboration with University of Georgia researchers, recently developed a vaccine that protects mice against MERS, which is closely related to the COVID-19 virus. The method that Perlman and his team used may also be effective in creating a human vaccine against coronaviruses that cause MERS and COVID-19.