Alec Hirsch graduated from Swathmore College in Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Biology in 1989 and received his Ph.D. in molecular Biology from Princeton University in 1999. He came to OHSU on a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Jay Nelson as his advisor. He was hired as Assistant Scientist at OHSU Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute in 2010. Over the past 15 years at OHSU (Portland, OR), originally as a post-doctoral fellow and currently as an assistant scientist, Dr. Hirsch has studied multiple facets of the interaction of flaviviruses with the infected host, focusing primarily on West Nile virus and the dengue viruses. He has initiated and contributed to multiple collaborative studies identifying important cellular proteins/ pathways involved in flaviviruses infection, including src-family kinases, claudin proteins, and the unfolded protein response. This work has been extended to several large programs directed at the discovery of anti-viral molecules, in which he currently serves as a co-investigator. Dr. Hirsch established a research program investigating the role played by cellular microRNAs in flavivirus infection, with a specific focus on modulation of host cell signaling pathways by miRNAs and how these pathways impact virus replication. His lab is also involved in characterization of factors affecting the immune response to flaviviruses, specifically the identification of adjuvants that boost the response to WNV or DENV specific vaccine candidates as well as a collaboration examiningage-dependent changes in miRNA expression in T-cells and dendritic cells and the role of these changes in age-dependent susceptibility to WNV infection. Most recently, Dr. Hirsch has begun to investigate the Zika virus, a virus related to DENV and WNV that has explosively emerged in the western hemisphere and has become a major public health concern.