Karoly Toth

Karoly Toth
Research Professor, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
Saint Louis University, Madrid, Spain

Biography

Dr. Toth earned his D.V.M. degree at the University of Veterinary Sciences at Budapest, Hungary. After that, he held various positions at academic institutions and in pharmaceutical industry. Currently, Dr. Toth is a Research professor at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, USA. Dr. Toth’s present work focuses on the pathogenesis of human adenoviruses, which are important pathogens for immunocompromised patients. Human adenoviruses do not replicate in conventionally used laboratory rodents. Thus, a new animal model based on the Syrian hamster was developed for studying the in vivo infection with these pathogens. This animal model, besides basic research on adenoviral pathogenesis, is also suitable to test antiviral compounds for their efficacy against adenoviral infection. Some of the active compounds identified in the hamster model are presently in clinical trials. Dr. Toth’s other research interest is the study of the pathogenesis of noroviruses. Human noroviruses cause about 20% of all acute gastroenteritis reported worldwide. At the present, human noroviruses cannot be cultured in vitro or in laboratory animals; thus mouse norovirus, a related virus is used as a model organism. The focus of this project is to investigate the mechanism for oral infection with this virus, with the aim of better understanding the course of the disease and possibly identifying targets for medical countermeasures.