Eric Johannsen

Professor of Medicine and Oncology
School of Medicine and Public Health

Office Phone: 608-262-9952
E-mail: ejohannsen@medicine.wisc.edu

Office Address:
McArdle Laboratory/WIMR II
1111 Highland Avenue
Madison, WI 53705

Research Interests

I am a physician scientist with a long-standing interest in understanding interactions between Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and its host cells during carcinogenesis and viral replication.  I trained in the laboratory of Elliott Kieff, where I initially focused on B lymphocyte transformation and the role of EBNA3 proteins in lymphomagenesis.  My work with the first mass spec characterization of the protein composition of EBV virions, kindled my interest in EBV replication.  My lab at Harvard published the first EBV interactome which led to the discovery that EBV LF2, a gene deleted from the B95-8 laboratory strain, is a potent negative regulator of EBV replication.

Since my recruitment to the University of Wisconsin in 2011, my work has been highly collaborative, particularly with the labs of Drs. Shannon Kenney, Jenny Gumperz, Bill Sugden, and Janet Mertz.  As the leader of our program project’s virus production core, I am responsible for constructing and validating EBV mutants for these collaborations. The advent of NGS has allowed me to reactivate quantitative skills that had persisted latently since my days as a Chemical Engineering undergraduate. Beginning with bioinformatics analysis of my own data, I gradually assumed more responsibility for doing analyses for collaborators.  This also led me to develop a course in bioinformatics tailored to graduate students in the biological sciences.

Additionally, I am an attending physician on the Infectious Disease teaching service and co-author the EBV chapter in Mandell, Douglas, and Bennett’s Principles and Practice of Infectious Disease.

Mentorship Philosophy

My goal is to foster the development of mentees into independent analytical thinkers.  This means learning to critically evaluate information, formulate testable hypotheses, design and execute experiments to test them, interpret data, draw conclusions, and communicate findings orally and in writing.

Each graduate level trainee has their own project in the lab.  It must be broadly in-line with the overall goals (and funding) of the lab, but substantial discretion in the specifics and evolution of the project is afforded.  I consider myself to be “training wheels” and the nature of my involvement should evolve as the project progresses.  It is a good sign when less frequent or different input is needed.