An Infectious Personality: A Conversation with Virologist Don Ganem

By Jeff Miller

Don Ganem

It’s not often that a scientist confesses that he has, well, lost interest in science. Not science per se, but the kind of research that concentrates on what is genetically conserved across species, from yeast to humans.

Don Ganem, MD, is such a scientist. A UCSF physician with a researcher’s heart and a teacher’s passion, he values most what is different about humans because that is where he can learn the most about infectious disease.

And in a career spanning more than two decades, Ganem has learned a lot. Kaposi’s sarcoma has been a particular target. KS is a sometimes disfiguring cancer known by its raised, purplish-red nodules and blotches that often appear on the face, mouth and limbs. As many of us might recall, KS can become an aggressive disease in those with HIV-weakened immune systems.

A decade ago, Ganem and his colleagues determined that KS was in fact caused by a novel herpesvirus, called human herpesvirus 8. While the age of retroviral drugs has now largely banished KS from the lives of HIV-positive patients, the virus lingers on in latent form.

Among other objectives, Ganem and his research collaborators now seek to know how this novel human herpesvirus becomes unstable – and how other viruses replicate as well.

These are exactly the kinds of medical mysteries Ganem prefers – and relishes. After all, our genome tells us that viruses have been a part of human existence almost from the beginning. That makes them very special indeed.

Hear the conversation.

(Podcast transcript available in approximately two weeks)