Mariam Gonzalez-Hernandez
e-mail address: gonmaria@umich.edu

Mentor: Christiane Wobus, PhD

Research Description

Human Noroviruses (HuNov) in the family Caliciviridae, cause the majority of all non-bacterial gastroenteritis.  Due to the lack of a small animal model, and the inability to culture HuNoV, HuNoV norovirus research is severely hindered.  Since knowledge about the viral life cycle and interactions with its host is currently unknown, we are interested in studying these crucial steps to understand how noroviruses cause disease, and for future development of antiviral therapies by using the only efficient culturable model: murine norovirus (MNV-1). Particularly we are interested in understanding how MNV crosses the epithelial barrier to reach its target cells, macrophages and dendritic cells. My focus is to understand if Microfold (M) cells, which are specialized epithelial cells, are involved in MNV-1 uptake. 

Publications

Mariam B. Gonzalez-Hernandez, Juliana Bragazzi Cunha, Christiane E. Wobus. Plaque Assay for Murine Norovirus. (2012). J. Vis. Exp. In press.

Stephen Cooper and Mariam Gonzalez-Hernandez. Experimental reconsideration of the utility of serum starvation as a method for synchronizing mammalian cells. Cell Biol Int. 2009 Jan;33(1):71-7. PMID: 18948216. 

Stephen Cooper, Michelle Paulsen, Mats Ljungman, Dang Vu-Phan, Duyang Kim
and Mariam Gonzalez-Hernandez. Membrane-elution analysis of content of cyclins A, B1 and E during the unperturbed mammalian cell cycle. Cell Division 2007, 2:28 (24 Sep 2007).  PMID: 17892542  

Abstracts

Mariam B. Gonzalez-Hernandez, Luz P. Blanco , Heather Auble, Stefan Taube and Christiane E. Wobus: "Murine Norovirus is Transcytosed Through a Murine Intestinal Epithelial Cell Monolayer in a Sialic Acid-dependent mechanism". American Society of Microbiology Annual General Meeting, San Diego, California, May 2010.

Gonzalez-Hernandez, M.B.; Perry, J.W., Williams, I.R and Wobus, C.E. 2011. Murine norovirus interaction with the intestinal epithelium. Abstract for oral presentation, American Society for Virology (ASV), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

Gonzalez-Hernandez, M.B., Liu, T., Blanco, L.P. and Wobus, C.E. 2012. Murine norovirus interaction with an in vitro model of the intestinal epithelium. Abstract for oral presentation, American Society for         Virology (ASV), University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.  (July 21-25, 2012)

Awards

American Society of Microbiology Student Travel Grant, 2010

Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant, 2010

American Society for Virology Travel Award Recipient, 2011 and 2012

Rackham Graduate Student Conference Travel Award Recipient, 2011

Molecular Mechanisms of Microbial Pathogenesis Training Grant, University of Michigan, 2010-12

Herman and Dorothy Miller Fund Awardee, 2012