Nicolas Cifuentes Featured on LabTV

In the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, a lab team led by Becky Dutch is studying a virus 99 percent of us get by age 5, but most of us have never heard of called human metapneumovirus (HMPV). 

HMPV is a respiratory virus that wasn’t identified until 15 years ago, but it’s “probably the second or third cause of viral pneumonia in children and in the elderly,” Dutch said. Her lab trainees—Edita Klimyte, Nicolas Cifuentes and Stacy Webb—are conducting NIH-funded research on HMPV and other respiratory viruses, and they recently shared their stories with LabTV.

Edita Klimyte, an MD-PhD student in Dutch’s lab, was born in Lithuania and moved to the Chicago-land area when she was eight. Her mother, who went back to school to become a pharmacist while working full-time, inspired Klimyte to focus on academics.

Her dissertation project focuses on exploiting the fact that HMPV needs a specific type of sugar in order to bind to and enter cells: “The virus needs the sugar, so how can we disrupt that interaction between the viral particle and the target cell?” Klimyte uses 3D models that resemble human lung tissue to test the interaction between the virus and target cells.

Six years ago she was recruited to UK, and although she had never been to Kentucky before, it only took one day to convince Klimyte that UK was where she wanted to be. “When I left my interview, I decided if I got in here this was going to be the place for me. I felt like everyone here was accomplished and smart and making great strides in science, but the main thing that got to me, that set it apart, is everyone is extremely down to earth and very oriented towards teamwork and collaboration,” Klimyte said.

Stacy Webb, who grew up in Dayton, Ohio, is a graduate research assistant in Dutch’s lab. She is the first person in her family to graduate from college, and she credits her high school physics teacher as fostering her interest in science.

“At Kentucky Wesleyan College I got my degree in chemistry and now I’m studying biochemistry to get my Ph.D. at UK,” Webb said. During her first undergrad research project, she said, “There was a moment where I realized I was the first person to see something and that was really exciting, and I loved that feeling.”

Webb said, “UK is an amazing place to do science. There’s a great environment here. It’s been a very nurturing environment.”

She studies the entry mechanisms of Hendra virus, a dangerous virus that can move from animals into humans. “There are these proteins that cover the surface of the virus and we want to see how those contribute to viral entry, and potentially how those can be targeted for viral therapeutic purposes.”

Nicolas Cifuentes, a postdoc in Dutch’s lab, grew up in Chile, where he did undergrad and graduate work in biology. He credits his mom as the one who pushed him into science. “She gave me a microscope when I was 14 years old and I really was trying to see anything that I could like ants, hair, whatever. I was really curious about things. As most scientists, what drives you is curiosity to know things, to understand things,” Cifuentes said.

He studies Hendra virus and HMPV. “Basically, we’re trying to understand how these viruses assemble inside the cell and build a new viral particle that is going to be spread from one person to the other,” said Cifuentes.

“I’m very happy with being in Becky’s lab,” he said. “She’s a very well-connected person. She’s very smart and she teaches you a lot, not only about science, but also about how to be involved with other scientists. We’re doing great science, we’re publishing in the best journals, so it’s a great place to be.”                       

Dutch, who will become president of the American Society of Virology in June, is training her 17th Ph.D. student. “My trainees are the future of science. As much as I love it, there will be a point which I’m not doing science anymore. And so, me training them means science keeps going,” Dutch said. “I think we live in a society that is not as scientifically trained as it should be. So the more scientifically literate people we have, the better. They are the voices for science in the future.”

LabTV.com features videos with medical researchers, including 32 from UK, who tell where they came from, how they chose their career, what they do each day in the lab, and why they love it. LabTV’s founder, Jay Walker of TEDMED, said he started the site because if high school students can personally identify with a young medical researcher, they are far more likely to consider becoming one. LabTV’s network features researchers working at leading universities, corporations and the National Institutes of Health.