Rate My Professor Wendy Maury

Wendy Maury, PhD, is Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and Mark Stinski Chair in Virology in the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa, where she joined the faculty in 1999. She received a BA in Botany from Duke University, an MS in Botany from North Carolina State University in 1980, and a PhD in Biology from the University of Virginia in 1988. Maury completed postdoctoral training in virology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, first at the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology in 1989 and then at the Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, in 1995. Her research examines enveloped virus-host cell interactions, with emphasis on virus entry mechanisms, cell surface receptors, and innate immune responses. Principal investigations target Ebola virus and other filoviruses including Zaire ebolavirus and Lake Victoria Marburgvirus, alongside studies of Zika virus, HIV, and coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-2. She utilizes model tissues like skin, liver, spleen, lung, and peritoneal cavity to explore how cellular environments influence viral attachment, internalization, and fusion.

Maury's seminal publications include "Tumor necrosis factor alpha activates human immunodeficiency virus type 1 through induction of nuclear factor binding to the NF-kappa B sites in the long terminal repeat" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1989), "T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain 1 (TIM-1) is a receptor for Zaire Ebolavirus and Lake Victoria Marburgvirus" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011), "Role of the phosphatidylserine receptor TIM-1 in enveloped-virus entry" (Journal of Virology, 2013), and "Envelope protein ubiquitination drives entry and pathogenesis of Zika virus" (Nature, 2020). She has earned the Carver College of Medicine Teaching Award (2011), Collegiate Teaching Award, and John P. Long Teaching Award in the Basic Sciences. Maury serves on the editorial boards of Retrovirology and Journal of Virology, as Virology Pearls editor for PLOS Pathogens, and as inaugural chair of the NIH Viral Dynamics and Transmission study section. As co-director of two NIH T32 training grants, she trains the next generation of virologists. In 2024, she was awarded an NIH grant to investigate Ebola virus tropism in placental tissues during pregnancy.