Ohio University alum Philip E. Pellett, Ph.D. ’80 received a lifetime achievement award from the HHV-6 Foundation in November.
Pellett is a Professor and Interim Chair of Immunology and Microbiology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. He earned an OHIO Honors Tutorial College B.S. in Chemistry in 1980.
Wayne State University Professor and Interim Chair of Microbiology and Immunology Philip Pellett, Ph.D., accepts the Dharam Ablashi Lifetime Achievement from Dharam Ablashi, Ph.D., co-discoverer of HHV-6 and scientific director of the HHV-6 Foundation.
He was awarded the Dharam Ablashi Lifetime Achievement Award at the ninth International Conference on HHV-6 and 7. This honor is awarded every other year to an investigator who has demonstrated extraordinary achievement in the field of HHV-6 research.
Pellett says HTC and the Chemistry Department “made OU the right place for me. The HTC program is based on a form of relatively independent but mentored learning that was critical for my intellectual and scientific development. I was fortunate in the extent to which Chemistry faculty understood and bought into the concept. An important part of the experience was having the opportunity to develop friendly, collegial relationships with the faculty. In addition to the individuals who are still associated with the department, important mentors included Peter Griffiths, Robert Ingham, Robert Kline, and Bill Blue (medical school).”
Pellett says Drs. David Hendricker, Gary Pfeiffer, Paul Sullivan, and James Tong were active Chemistry faculty members at the time he attended OHIO.
“I place very high value on the education in chemistry I received at OU,” Pellett says. “A research experience I had with Tom Wagner was transformative.”
Pellett says the decision to come to OHIO was almost a near miss.
“I would likely not have attended OU without the efforts of Coach Bob Wren, who was working in the admissions office the day I passed through Athens a couple of weeks before fall classes started in 1976. He said, ‘Boy, why the hell aren’t you in school? Get your a– down here in time for classes and I will find a scholarship for you.’ Which he did (the Carlson Chemistry Scholarship).”
About the HHV-6 Foundation
The Santa Barbara, Calif.-based HHV-6 Foundation, of which Pellett is a Scientific Advisory Board member, is the primary sponsor and facilitator of the meeting, now held every two to three years.
Human Herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) is a set of two closely related herpes viruses known as HHV-6A and HHV-6B that infect nearly all human beings, typically before the age of two. The acquisition of HHV-6 in infancy is often symptomatic, resulting in childhood fever, diarrhea, and exanthem subitum rash (commonly known as roseola). Although rare, this initial infection can also cause febrile seizures, encephalitis or intractable seizures. (More about HHV-6 on the foundation website.)
The virus is related to other herpes viruses, but has molecular properties that are interestingly distinct. The conference, conceived and organized by Pellett 20 years ago, gathers the world’s leading experts in the clinical, diagnostic, and molecular and cell biology of human herpes viruses, reports the Wayne State School of Medicine newsletter.
About Pellett’s Research
Pellett has written extensively about HHV-6 & 7, and is co-author of the chapter on HHV-6 & 7 in Field’s Virology and was the Center for Disease Control’s Chief of the Herpesvirus Section between 1986 and 2007. During his stay at the CDC, Pellett’s lab reported the first isolation of the HHV-6 Z29 strain from an African patient, which is still considered the prototype of HHV-6B. Pellett and his colleagues not only sequenced HHV-6 Z-29, they also generated many plasmids and identified important genes involved in latency and replication, reports the foundation announcement of the award.
“We appreciate and admire his consistent and selfless efforts over the years to make research reagents (such as antibodies, cell lines and plasmid clones) available to other investigators” said Dr. Dharam Ablashi, one of the co-discoverers of HHV-6, after whom the award is named.
“Dr. Pellett has also made a tremendous difference in the field through his effort to enhance public awareness about this under-appreciated virus,” noted Kristin Loomis, Executive Director of the HHV-6 Foundation. He organized the first satellite workshop on HHV-6 at the International Herpesvirus Workshop in Denmark in 1989, and he organized the first International Conference on HHV-6 and HHV-7 in 1994, He also served as the Co-Chair of the 9th International Conference on HHV-6 & 7 in Boston earlier this month as well as a conference on Roseoloviruses at the NIH in June of 2014.
Pellett earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, in the laboratory of Bernard Roizman. While at the CDC, he served as an Adjunct Professor at Emory, leaving to become a Professor of Molecular Medicine for Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve as well as the Director of Herpesvirus Translational and Basic Research in 2007. He has served on the editorial boards of numerous publications including Journal of Virology, Virology, Virus Research, and Clinical and Vaccine Immunology, served two terms as Chair of the Herpesvirales Study Group of the International Committee for Taxonomy of Viruses.
In association with Robert Gallo’s lab, Pellett used restriction enzyme analysis to show that the HHV-6A GS strain (originally known as HBLV) was either a distinct strain or separate virus. Later, as a member of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, he led the way toward formally establishing them as distinct viruses in 2013. He is the author of over 145 publications on herpes viruses. A frequent reviewer and member of NIH study sections, Dr. Pellett has won recognition as a “top reviewer” by several publications, and also won a Wayne State University Teaching Award in 2014.
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