The Editors of Retrovirology are delighted to announce the winner of the 2015 KT Jeang Retrovirology prize is Paul Bieniasz. Started in 2005, it is awarded  to a colleague who has made outstanding contributions to the field of retrovirology and is in the middle of their career. Read about the creation of the prize and the previous winners here. Previous winners are: Stephen Goff (2005), Joseph Sodroski (2006), Karen Beamon (2007), Ben Berkhout (2008), Thierry Heidmann (2009), Michael Malim (2010), Masao Matsuoka (2011), and Monsef Benkirane (2013).

Dr. Bieniasz received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Bath in 1990 and his Ph.D. in virology from Imperial College, University of London, in 1996. He was a postdoctoral Researcher at Duke University until 1999, studying molecular retrovirology, and then accepted positions as a Staff Investigator at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC) and as an Assistant Professor at Rockefeller University. In 2004 he was promoted to Associate Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Retrovirology and in 2010 he was promoted to Professor with tenure. He is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

His research focuses on two complementary areas of research: characterizing the host-cell factors and pathways that are exploited by retroviruses, and the reverse, the host functions that have evolved to defend themselves from these retroviruses. You can read a more complete description of Dr. Bieniasz’s career and accomplishments in an editorial in Retrovirology.

Our warmest congratulations to Dr. Paul Bieniasz on this achievement.