Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D. is an assistant professor within two departments at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ: Molecular & Cellular Biosciences and Biological Sciences.
Beginning in his undergraduate years, Dr. Krummenacher started studying viruses and he's never stopped. Today he works with the herpes simplex virus in his lab, with Rowan undergraduate students, studying how the virus interacts with human cells.
Beth Dombkowski:
Hello. My name is Beth Dombkowski, and I'm coming to you from the Office of Admissions at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey.
Beth Dombkowski:
Welcome to Rowan Confidential. I am here today with Dr. Claude Krummenacher. Hello Dr. Krummenacher.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Hello, nice to be here.
Beth Dombkowski:
Nice to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us today. A little bit about Dr. Krummenacher. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences. He graduated in biology and has a PhD from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and came to Philadelphia as a Postdoc at the Wistar Institute and then was at Penn Dental School and became part of the faculty. Dr. Krummenacher has been at Rowan since 2014, and studies viruses. He started as an undergrad and never stopped. He now works with the herpes simplex virus with a group of Rowan undergraduates, and his lab is particularly interested in how the virus interacts with human cells at the beginning of the infection. That's a lot.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
That's a lot to consider.
Beth Dombkowski:
Absolutely.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Especially for viruses, which we think are relatively simple to study. And that's why I first started to work on viruses. I thought I can understand a virus. In fact, they are much more complicated than I thought originally, and I've been very much interested in learning everything about them ever since.
Beth Dombkowski:
So how did you get into viruses?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
I didn't start my college education thinking I would end up being a virologist. I wanted to be a field scientist. Then I discovered experimental science, and then when I was a senior we had the option of choosing a lab to do a personal work as a researcher. And that's when I chose to work on viruses. I didn't know much about them, but I thought they were simple enough and I can handle that. So I had my first project as an undergrad on viruses, and then I studied viruses during my whole PhD at Lausanne.
Beth Dombkowski:
My goodness. So here at Rowan this is what you teach, and you ha you have a lab here that you work with students?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Yes. I have a lab where I conduct research on herpes simplex virus, which is the virus that causes herpes and cold sores and genital herpes. And I teach a course on infectious agents.
Beth Dombkowski:
Oh my goodness.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Which covers more than just viruses. We cover viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi, even some infectious proteins. And I also teach introductory courses to many different majors in genetics and cell biology.
Beth Dombkowski:
So the students that are in your lab with you, what's their daily, what do they do? What type of research are they doing? How are they conducting this?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
So they work in my lab, either as volunteers or they are getting credit through courses in biology or translational biomedical sciences.
Beth Dombkowski:
And these are undergraduate students?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
These are all undergraduate students.
Beth Dombkowski:
All undergrad. Okay.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
I have currently seven students in my lab, and I try to keep my labs small because I want to be able to take care of all my students. But also because we work with actually infectious human viruses.
Beth Dombkowski:
Oh my goodness.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
We have to be careful. So too many people in a small lab with virus around would not be a good thing. And we follow very clear guideline in terms of safety so that there's no danger for the students. But still we have infectious viruses in the lab. So my students work with these viruses on two different projects at this time. One project is to try to use what we know about this original interaction between the virus and the cell, and develop drugs that would prevent that.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
So if we manage to do that, then we can have new drugs, treatments, that will prevent an infection. So that's our goal. It's a very big goal.
Beth Dombkowski:
It is a big goal, yes.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
If we can find a drug that prevents and cure herpes from the world that'd be absolutely wonderful.
Beth Dombkowski:
That would be phenomenal.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
We are at the very, very beginning of this. We are working with chemists and people that are able to do modeling of the virus and modeling of the cell and modeling of drugs. And we are the very beginning, but it seems that we have interesting stuff.
Beth Dombkowski:
Oh that's great.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
So that motivates the students to go on, to do these kind of tests. The other group of students work on something completely different, but stemming also from my original research on the interaction of the virus with the cell. And well, you have to think that these viruses are very, very smart, and when you get infected your immune system is going to react and try to fight the virus. Now herpes viruses are very successful viruses and we can talk about all the different kinds, but herpes simplex virus has a lot of tools that it uses to actually distract your immune system or block your immune system, so that it can survive in the host. And that's what we are studying at the molecular level, with just one specific type of tool that the virus may use to avoid your immune system.
Beth Dombkowski:
Now I must admit, before speaking with you I wasn't as familiar with all of the different types of herpes that exist, and I didn't realize what other illnesses that I know of that are related. Can you talk about that?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Yes. So when we think about herpes, we think about the disease called herpes, which is caused by these two viruses, herpes simplex virus type one and type two. But in fact humans are infected by nine different herpes viruses. And among these viruses there is the chicken pox virus for instance, that is also a closely related parent of herpes simplex. Another virus that is fairly common is Epstein–Barr virus, which is a virus that causes mononucleosis.
Beth Dombkowski:
Oh my goodness. Okay.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
So people don't really know it's a herpes virus. And this virus in particular can also cause some type of cancers. So it's the case with another type of herpes virus. But most people who are infected with these viruses don't actually suffer much from them. Among the nine herpes viruses that infect human, most of us are probably infected with at least three or four of them.
Beth Dombkowski:
That many.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
And we don't really realize.
Beth Dombkowski:
Wow.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
These viruses are very, very successful. They are very well adapted to their host. We are the host, we harbor them. And when you think about as humans we are very privileged, we have nine herpes viruses.
Beth Dombkowski:
Lucky us.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Lucky us. But you find these viruses essentially in all the animals, any vertebrate animal that you can think of probably has at least one, maybe two herpes viruses. So your cat, cow, dogs, horses, birds, turtles, elephants.
Beth Dombkowski:
Interesting.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
And even oysters can have herpes.
Beth Dombkowski:
Really? I did not know this.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Yes. So it's a very, very large family of very successful viruses, for which there is not a lot of treatment and options, especially in human.
Beth Dombkowski:
How long has this virus been around?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Talking about the my virus, the herpes simplex virus.
Beth Dombkowski:
Your virus, yes.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
So we know, based on studies of how this virus evolved and how fast it mutates, that it's been with humans for as far back as when man left Africa essentially.
Beth Dombkowski:
Really?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Yeah. So the very, very early humans had their herpes with them. At least one of them.
Beth Dombkowski:
So this is nothing new. Wow.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
No, this is nothing new.
Beth Dombkowski:
Oh my goodness. So the program that you're teaching, and you teach in two different programs, what would attract a student to study with you and to study these programs?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
So I teach in two quite different program. There's biology, and biology is a very big, major, very big program, there's more than a thousand students now in biology. And students have a very broad set of interests when they study biology. A lot of students want to go to medical school, and this is clearly a path to medical school. But we have other students that are interested in the environment, the ecology or just cell biology, genetics. And so it's a very big programs that has students with a lot of interests.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
And the courses I teach, of course the students interested in biomedical approaches are interested. The students who are more interested in ecology, they like that maybe a little bit less, but everybody in biology has to get a well rounded education in biological sciences.
Beth Dombkowski:
Sure.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
The other program that I'm teaching in is the translational biomedical sciences. So this is a much, much smaller program, and the students that enter this program are mostly interested in research. So it's a very research oriented program. So if the students know that they will do research afterwards, then these students will get in that program. They can spend a lot of time in the lab. So this program has four semesters of research, which is really a lot. So it's a much more focused type of program, with students that have very strong idea of what they want. They can also go to medical schools through that. And we have a new program in molecular and cellular biology that is being developed, also for students that are really interested in biomedical approaches in genetic and cell biology.
Beth Dombkowski:
Oh, interesting. So what would draw a student to research, over say going to med school? Like what type of students do you think finds your lab and thrives there?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
So yes, I have students in my lab who wants to go to medical school.
Beth Dombkowski:
Oh you do. Okay.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Yes, yes.
Beth Dombkowski:
So they're not mutually exclusive?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
No, I don't reject students just because they want to be doctors and not scientists, although I like scientists. But all my students what I want from them is them to be curious and to be interested and to be motivated. Because you cannot do research if you are not really interested, if you are not curious about, oh, I'm going to find this, I'm going to test this, I'm going to try this. This is true for the students, this is true for me. So the students want to come to the lab to get research experience, whether they want to go to medical school or to do research afterwards. I haven't converted students from the medical path to the research path or vice versa yet.
Beth Dombkowski:
Yet.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
But yeah, it's not that I'm not trying.
Beth Dombkowski:
So I have one more question. Why Rowan? What brought you to Rowan?
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
So when I was hired here in 2014, Rowan was really at the beginning of being really a research institution. And they were really pushing for increasing research, increasing research activity, from faculty but also giving more options to students to do research. And I think that's what really attracted me here. I have this idea that we can actually build something around undergraduate research, which before I didn't really know, and develop new programs.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
This Department of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at that time had a different name and was really, really an embryonic department, and coming here to develop it was very good. Now we're probably like a toddler department, and we still have a lot to do. But it's been really, really good to develop these new programs for students that are interested in research, to offer research options in my lab for students, and that I really liked. Yes.
Beth Dombkowski:
Wonderful. Dr. Krummenacher, thank you so much for coming to talk to us today.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Well thank you for inviting me.
Beth Dombkowski:
Absolutely. Hope to see you again.
Claude Krummenacher, Ph.D.:
Yes.
Beth Dombkowski:
And this has been Rowan Confidential.