Innate Immune Signaling and the Interferon Response
What determines which genes the interferon system turns on, how strongly, and for how long?
Benjamin tenOever & the tenOever laboratory
Viruses, host defense, and the biology between them.
Research on how cells detect viruses and how strongly they answer, and on rewriting viruses into instruments that ask questions no other method can. Across influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and other RNA viruses, the recurring subject is proportion, meaning which parts of a defense engage, how fast, and at what cost.
Explore the research →63Reviewed publications
6Research areas
14Discoveries with evidence
2003–2025Corpus coverage
A program built around questions
Small RNA Biology and the Limits of Antiviral Silencing
Do mammals use small RNAs against viruses, and if not, why not?
Programmable Virology
If a virus can be redesigned, what can be learned that cannot be learned any other way?
Influenza Genome Regulation and Replication
How does influenza A virus control the order and amount of its own gene expression?
Pandemic Host Response and Disease
Why does SARS-CoV-2 produce the pattern of disease it does, and what part of that is the host's own response?
Viral Populations, Evolution and Transmission
What survives when a viral population moves between hosts, tissues or species?
Selected discoveries
Encoding a perturbation in a virus makes tropism, host restriction and viral output experimental variables inside an intact animal
lab-led for Perez 2009, Varble 2010, Langlois 2012 in PNAS, Langlois 2012 in Molecular Therapy, Pham 2012, Varble 2013, Schmid 2014, Benitez 2015 on in vivo screening, Møller 2018 and the tenOever 2019 review, and co-led for Langlois 2013, whose ferret transmission work sits with the Perez and García-Sastre groups. Daniloski 2021 in Cell is co-led with the Sanjana laboratory
Vertebrate somatic cells do not rely on small RNA silencing against viruses, and the reason is not that such a defence would fail in a mammalian cell
lab-led for Backes 2014, Benitez 2015 on engineered RNA interference, Aguado 2015 and the tenOever 2013 review, co-led with the Cherry laboratory for Backes 2012, and collaborative for Cullen 2013, a Minireview led by Bryan Cullen with Sara Cherry and tenOever
The inflammatory character of SARS-CoV-2 infection is something the virus requires rather than something it fails to suppress
lab-led
Read all fourteen discoveries →
How to read the evidence
Individual studies, cross-paper synthesis, and unresolved questions are kept distinct. Each publication identifies the laboratory’s role; collaborative discoveries retain credit to the groups that led them.
Sources, attribution & scope →Find your starting point
For scientists & collaborators
Search the corpus and follow the evidence into individual publication records.
For trainees
Follow how questions, methods, and interpretations developed over two decades.
For journalists & readers
Start with the discoveries, their experimental support, and the limits of each claim.