Paul Ahlquist

Paul Ahlquist is the Paul J. Kaesberg Professor of Oncology and Molecular Virology, Steenbock Professor of Microbiological Sciences, and Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He directs the John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Center for Research in Virology at the Morgridge Institute for Research and serves as Associate Director for Basic Sciences at the UW Carbone Cancer Center. Ahlquist earned a B.S. in Physics from Iowa State University in 1976 and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. He was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator from 1997 to 2021. His honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science fellowship, NIH MERIT Award, NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, Hilldale Award in Biological Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UW Carbone Cancer Center Ride Scholar award, and Allen Research Award from the American Phytopathological Society. Since 2010, he has served as a member of the National Institutes of Health Virology A Study Section.

Ahlquist's research investigates molecular mechanisms of virus replication and host interactions, focusing on positive-strand RNA viruses—the largest virus class—including human pathogens such as hepatitis C virus and SARS coronavirus—as well as hepatitis B virus replication processes, HIV gene expression and latency, and genome-wide changes in human papillomavirus-induced cancers. His laboratory integrates molecular genetics, genomics, biochemistry, and cell biology, revealing structural and functional parallels among replication complexes of positive-strand RNA viruses, retroviruses, and double-stranded RNA viruses. Ahlquist identified the first higher eukaryotic viruses directing genome replication, gene expression, and virion assembly in yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, facilitating discovery of host genes required for viral RNA replication. Key publications include "Cryo-Electron Tomography Reveals Novel Features of a Viral RNA Replication Compartment" (eLife, 2017), "Subdomain cryo-EM structure of nodaviral replication protein A crown complex provides mechanistic insights into RNA genome replication" (PNAS, 2020), "Crowning touches in positive-strand RNA virus genome replication complex structure and function" (Annual Review of Virology, 2022), and "Positive-strand RNA virus genome replication organelles: structure, assembly, control" (Trends in Genetics, 2024).

Professional Email: ahlquist@wisc.edu