Prof. Ben Berkhout is Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Experimental Virology at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In the late 1980s, he was instrumental in changing the paradigm of thinking on gene regulation. At a time when the focus in eukaryotic transcription was on DNA-enhancers and DNA-binding proteins, he emerged to propose HIV-1 TAR RNA and the viral Tat protein as prototypes of RNA and RNA-binding protein mediated mammalian gene regulation. That novel insight, focusing on TAR as RNA rather than DNA, subsequently directed efforts toward the cloning of additional TAR RNA-binding proteins, such as the human TRBP protein, which is now recognized to play a critical role in interferon signaling, RNA interference and micro-RNA biogenesis. Professor Berkhout's research on RNA has provided additional important building blocks for many other aspects of our current knowledge on HIV-1 replication. He has employed a multi-disciplinary approach to research, combining methods from molecular biology, biochemistry and most importantly, virology. His research has extended our insights into the mechanisms of transcription, reverse transcription, drug-resistance, RNA interference and CRISPR.

Website: https://www.amc.nl/web/research/who-is-who-in-research/who-is-who-in-research.htm?p=61