Francis "Frank" Vincent Chisari (born 5 April 1942 in New York City)[1] is a physician, experimental pathologist, and viral immunologist, known for his research on virus-host interactions and disease pathogenesis during hepatitis B and hepatitis C virus infections.[2]
Education and career
Chisari earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Fordham University in 1963 and an M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College in 1968. His postgraduate training included an internship in Internal Medicine at New York Hospital (1968-69), residency in anatomic pathology at the Mayo Clinic (1969-70), a staff associate position in immunopathology at the NIH (1970-72), residency in internal medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (1972-73), and a postdoctoral research fellowship in immunopathology at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation (1973-75). He joined the Scripps Faculty as an Assistant Professor (1975-81), progressing to Associate Professor (1981-88) during which he spent a sabbatical year (1983-1984) as a Fogarty Scholar in molecular biology at the Institut Pasteur,[3] and Full Professor from 1988 until retiring as Professor Emeritus in 2015.
During his tenure at Scripps, Chisari's NIH-funded research focused on the immunological basis for viral clearance and disease pathogenesis during acute and persistent hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections; the signaling pathways and effector molecules that mediate these antiviral and pathogenic effects; and the viral evasion strategies that subvert them. His laboratory developed cellular and animal models of HBV and HCV infection and performed foundational studies elucidating the T-cell response to these viruses in infected humans, subhuman primates, and transgenic mice and the role that the immune system plays in the pathogenesis of virus induced inflammatory disease and in the development of virus induced cancer.
Chisari is best known for demonstrating that chronic immune-mediated injury and inflammation can cause liver cancer, and for discovering that antiviral T cells can purge viruses from infected cells by secreting antiviral cytokines that inhibit viral replication, thus controlling and even eradicating the infection while preserving the vital functions of the infected cells. Those studies established a new paradigm in viral pathogenesis and immunobiology which has informed the global pursuit of novel immunotherapeutic approaches for the prevention and treatment of chronic HBV and other viral infections.[4]
In the HCV arena, his laboratory: developed a cell culture system capable of supporting the entire HCV life cycle; identified a novel mechanism for viral spread via exosomal delivery of HCV genomic RNA from infected hepatocytes to uninfected hepatocytes masked by the exosome from detection by antiviral antibodies; and they discovered that HCV genomic RNA-containing exosomes can trigger an innate host response by activating plasmacytoid dendritic cells to produce antiviral cytokines that can suppress viral spread.
In addition to his basic research, from 1988 to 2004 Chisari served as Director of an NIH-funded General Clinical Research Center where he and other Scripps scientists and clinicians performed a wide variety of peer-reviewed clinical studies of patients with viral infections, autoimmune diseases, neurological diseases, sleep disorders, metabolic diseases and cancer.
Chisari has lectured widely internationally; he has served on the editorial boards of several distinguished scientific journals; and he holds numerous patents on the use of viral peptide epitopes to treat and to prevent chronic hepatitis-B and hepatitis-C virus infections.[5] In recognition of his contributions, Chisari has received numerous honors and awards, including those listed below.
Awards and honors
1962 Elected Member, Phi Beta Kappa national academic honor society
1967 Elected Member, Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society
1976 Research Career Development Award, National Institutes of Health
1983 Fogarty Senior International Fellowship, National Institutes of Health
1984 International Scholar, Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, Paris
1990 NIH Merit Award, National Institutes of Health
1992 Elected Member, Association of American Physicians
Revill, P. A.; Chisari, F. V.; Block, J. M.; Dandri, M.; Gehring, A. J.; Guo, H.; Hu, J.; Kramvis, A.; Lampertico, P.; Janssen HLA; Levrero, M.; Li, W.; Liang, T. J.; Lim, S. G.; Lu, F.; Penicaud, M. C.; Tavis, J. E.; Thimme, R.; Members of the ICE-HBV Working Groups; ICE-HBV Stakeholders Group Chairs; ICE-HBV Senior Advisors; Zoulim, F. (2019). "A global scientific strategy to cure hepatitis B". The Lancet. Gastroenterology & Hepatology. 4 (7): 545–558. doi:10.1016/S2468-1253(19)30119-0. PMC6732795. PMID30981686.
