Greg Towers is Professor of Virology at University College London and is an international authority on retroviruses who has made fundamental contributions to HIV biology.
Prominent among his discoveries is the finding that HIV capsids are stabilised by host protein co-factors which facilitate nuclear access, shielding the viral genome from cytoplasmic nucleic acid sensors and preventing immune activation. This work overturned the common view that HIV released its genome in the cytoplasm. His work has pioneered a broader view of our defence system, which recognise and define roles beyond the control of infection, encompassing cancer suppression and autoinflammatory driven pathology. By capitalising on these findings his work helps unlock the therapeutic and diagnostic potential of this new perspective.