Herbert W. Virgin IV

Biosketch

Herbert ‘Skip’ Virgin M.D., Ph.D
Distinguished Fellow, AI Drug Discovery and Development
Accelerator, Global Health, Gates Foundation

Skip is Head of the AI-Enable Cures Frontier program at the Gates Foundation, building AI/ML tools for biomarker/target discovery and predicting small molecule ADMET properties. He received A.B., M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University and Medical School, and trained at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (internal medicine) and Barnes Hospital (infectious diseases). He joined the faculty at Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis in 1990, serving as the Mallinckrodt Professor and Head of the Department of Pathology & Immunology (2006-17, now Emeritus). He is an elected member of the NAS, ASCI, AAAS, AAP and ASM and served as a reviewing editor at Science and Cell. Skip focused on genetic, molecular and computational approaches to discover mechanisms of immunobiology and pathogenesis of infection, publishing 261 peer reviewed manuscripts and multiple influential reviews.

While EVP/CSO at Vir Biotechnology (2018-22) Skip led the discovery of 7 new molecular entities brought into the clinic including monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), siRNAs and vectored vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2, influenza virus, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis delta virus (HDV) and HIV. Sotrovimab, an anti-SARS-CoV-2 mAb, received emergency authorization in many countries around the world. A mAb plus siRNA combination targeting HDV has been granted FDA Fast Track Status and Orphan Drug Designation from the European Medicines Agency. Skip served as the Head of the Institute of Medicine and CMO of Altos Labs (2022-23) prior to joining the Gates Foundation in 2024.

Research Interests

Skip’s research has been at the bridging-interface between infection, pathogen genetics, the host and host genetics. His laboratory identified the role and mechanisms of several RNA and DNA virus immune evasion molecules, and studied immune effector mechanisms including ISG15, interferon-γ, interferon-λ, interferon-α, cGAS, HOIL-1, and autophagy genes. They used a combination of viral and host genetics to perform ‘host-complementation’ to identify mechanisms of infection control in vivo. His team discovered the role of the human disease susceptibility gene ATG16L1 in intestinal Paneth cells in Crohn’s disease, leading to an intense interest in linking emerging human genetics data to drug discovery and clinical trials. Pathogen discovery efforts led to conceptualization of the virome as a driver of host phenotypes and included the discovery of murine norovirus, the first structure and culture of a norovirus, development of norovirus genetics and the demonstration that virus infection can trigger novel disease-like pathologies in mice carrying mutations in human disease-susceptibility genes. They showed symbiotic advantages for certain chronic infections, control of herpesvirus latency by helminthic worm infection (via regulation of key viral promoters) and the imprinting of immunity by early-life infections with consequent changes in vaccine responses. They defined and linked the human virome to enteropathy in AIDS, inflammatory bowel diseases, and type 1 diabetes. His team discovered sterilizing innate immunity and its regulation by the bacterial microbiome and demonstrated inheritance of immune function via the maternal microbiome.