Nationality: British, Slovakian-Hungarian
Position: Professor of Virology
Research Fields: Influenza virus molecular biology
Short discription:
Professor Fodor obtained his MSc in Chemical Technology from the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. He worked as a Research Assistant at the Institute of Virology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava before pursuing graduate studies with Professor George Brownlee at the University of Oxford, where he earned his DPhil in Pathology in 1995. After completing his doctorate, he conducted postdoctoral research with Dr Peter Palese at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York. In 2002, he was awarded an MRC Senior Non-Clinical Research Fellowship to establish his research group in the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford. After a brief period as an Associate Professor, he was appointed as Professor of Virology in 2011 at the University of Oxford.
Professor Fodor’s research interests are centred on RNA viruses, particularly influenza viruses, and more recently coronaviruses. His research focuses on the fundamental molecular mechanisms used by viruses to transcribe and replicate their RNA genome, the role of host factors in these processes, and cellular responses to viral infection. In collaboration with Professor Jonathan Grimes from the Division of Structural Biology at the University of Oxford, he contributed to understanding the structural basis of influenza virus RNA synthesis by determining structures of the influenza virus RNA polymerase complex.
Professor Fodor has published extensively in leading scientific journals, including Nature, Nature Microbiology, Cell, Molecular Cell, and PNAS. He is the recipient of the 2019 AstraZeneca Award from the Biochemical Society. Professor Fodor is a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected as a member of EMBO in 2021.
