Daniel L Rock

Formerly a research leader in exotic viral diseases at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center for 15 years, Dr. Daniel Rock has earned international recognition in the areas of infectious disease and molecular pathogenesis of viral diseases. His research has focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying viral virulence and host range, with particular emphasis on high-consequence viral diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease and exotic pox viruses. At Illinois, Daniel Rock research uses comparative genomic and molecular genetic approaches, together with relevant animal disease models, to define and characterize the role of specific viral determinants in disease. This fundamental understanding of the intricacies surrounding pathogen-host interactions in infection and immunity will enable significant improvements in existing disease control methods, such as vaccines, and will also lead to new and perhaps definitive control strategies. His current research examines, at the molecular level, how pox viruses and herpes viruses cause disease and looks for host genes associated with resistance or susceptibility to viral infection. Dr. Rock earned a bachelor’s degree from Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, and a PhD in veterinary microbiology from Iowa State University, Ames. He completed a post-doc- toral fellowship in molecular virology at the Wistar Institute, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and held faculty positions at North Dakota State University, Fargo, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln before joining the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, New York, in 1989. In 2004 he became a professor with the Department of Pathobiology and Veterinary Science and the Center of Excel- lence forVaccine Research at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.