Steffen Mueller is a

virologist Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host cells for reproduction, the ...

and was assistant professor at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. Mueller received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in molecular microbiology from

in 2002 in the laboratory of

Eckard Wimmer Eckard Wimmer (born 22 May 1936) is a German American virologist, organic chemist and distinguished professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at Stony Brook University. He is best known for his seminal work on the molecular biology of poli ...

. Mueller is a co-developer of the platform technology dubbed ''SAVE'' (Synthetic Attenuated Virus Engineering), a method to produce weakened synthetic viruses that are permanently prevented from regaining

virulence Virulence is a pathogen's or microorganism's ability to cause damage to a host. In most cases, especially in animal systems, virulence refers to the degree of damage caused by a microbe to its host. The pathogenicity of an organism—its abili ...

. The method may hold the key to a new class of antiviral, so-called live, or

attenuated vaccine An attenuated vaccine (or a live attenuated vaccine, LAV) is a vaccine created by reducing the virulence of a pathogen, but still keeping it viable (or "live"). Attenuation takes an infectious agent and alters it so that it becomes harmless or le ...

s. Mueller is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer o
Codagenix Inc.
a New York-based biotechnology company engaged in the development of vaccines.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mueller, Steffen American virologists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)