University of Alberta
Basic Science
Virology, Immunology, Vaccines

Dept. of Medical Microbiology & Immunology 
University of Alberta
Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry 
6-010 Katz Group-Rexall Centre for Health Research
T6G 2E1 Edmonton, AB
Canada

(780) 248-1888
(780) 492-7521

Michael Houghton, PhD, is the Li ka Shing Professor and holder of the Canada Excellence in Research Chair (CERC) in Virology within the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology at the University of Alberta where he is focusing on research into viral hepatitis and other inflammatory diseases. Together with Dr. G. Kuo & Dr. Q-L. Choo at the Chiron Corporation and Dr. D. Bradley at the CDC in the USA, his laboratory at Chiron discovered the hepatitis C virus, developed blood tests and identified new drug targets for this virus as well as developing a vaccine for clinical development. His laboratory was also the first to molecularly characterize the viral hepatitis D genome and the human beta-interferon gene. He and colleagues have received numerous awards for their work on hepatitis C including the Clinical Lasker and Karl Landsteiner awards from the USA, the Robert Koch Medal from Germany and the Gold Medal from the Canadian Liver Disease Association. He is an author of more than 200 research publications.