When: 1 October, 2026, 16:00–17:30
Where: Online via Zoom (link provided upon registration)
Speaker: Eva Herker, Institute of Virology, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany
Title: Lipids go viral: the role of lipids in virus replication
ABSTRACT
Lipid droplets were once viewed simply as inert depots for neutral lipid, the most efficient way for cells to store energy. That view has shifted: LDs are now recognized as dynamic, heterogeneous organelles sitting at the core of lipid metabolism. They supply lipids for energy generation and as building blocks for other lipid classes, absorb excess lipids during lipotoxic stress, and connect to virtually every other organelle through membrane contact sites.
All intracellular pathogens depend on the host's metabolic pathways to infect and replicate. For positive-strand RNA viruses, host lipids are needed for formation of membranous replication organelles (ROs), while enveloped viruses require them for their viral envelope. Viruses also trigger the mobilization and breakdown of host lipids, using them both as building blocks and as an energy source for their multiplication. Given these lipid metabolic demands, it is unsurprising that viruses have evolved diverse strategies to hijack different facets of lipid droplet biology, the cell's dedicated lipid storage organelles. This lecture will present an overview on how flaviviruses interact with host cell lipid droplets for replication.
Biography
Eva Herker was trained in biochemistry at the University of Potsdam and the University of Tübingen and during her PhD investigated cell death mechanisms and aging processes in yeast. Supported by a Human Frontier Science Program Fellowship, she started working on virus-host interactions of hepatitis C viruses as a post-doc at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology (San Francisco, USA). After leading a junior research group at the Leibniz Institute for Virology in Hamburg, she was appointed as Professor of Molecular Virology at the University of Marburg. Her research group investigates virus-host interactions, focusing on the interplay between flaviviruses, lipid droplets, and lipid metabolism. She is also the spokesperson of a DFG-funded research unit on lipid droplet heterogeneity, which studies the structural and functional diversity of these organelles.
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