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Michael Houghton joined Epiphany following a distinguished 24 year career at Chiron where he was most recently Vice President of HCV and Virology Research. In 1989, Dr. Houghton and his Chiron colleagues were the first to identify the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in collaboration with the CDC. Their discovery led to a series of HCV tests that are now used globally to screen the blood supply to prevent infection. Their work also led to the identification of important new anti-HCV drug targets. For this work, Dr. Houghton received the Albert Lasker Prize in 2000 as well as numerous other awards from various countries and organizations throughout the world. More recently, Dr. Houghton has focused on vaccine approaches to hepatitis C, including strategies for immunotherapy of this viral disease. In addition to HCV, Dr. Houghton’s group was the first to characterize the hepatitis D virus (delta virus). He has published over 200 articles in the fields of gene regulation, human beta interferon and hepatitis C and D viruses. He also holds numerous patents issued in the fields of recombinant human interferons, bacterial expression vectors, and hepatitis C and D viruses. Dr. Houghton obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from Kings College, University of London, and worked in the Searle Research Laboratories in the United Kingdom. | 