Ileana Cristea is the Henry L. Hillman Professor in Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Her laboratory investigates host-pathogen interactions and mechanisms of cellular defense during infection with human viruses. Towards this goal, she has been at the forefront of promoting the integration of the fields of virology and proteomics. She has developed methods for studying spatial and temporal virus-host protein interactions, bridging developments in mass spectrometry to important findings in virology. For example, her laboratory has contributed to the emergence of the research field of nuclear viral DNA sensing in immune response, to uncovering mechanisms driving organelle remodeling and a new mitochondria-ER structure during infection, and to the discovery of sirtuins as broad-spectrum antiviral factors that can be targeted for therapeutic intervention. Dr. Cristea is the Past-President of the American Human Proteome Organization (US HUPO), the past-chair of the Biology/Disease-driven Human Proteome Project (B/D-HPP) of HUPO, and the Chair of the Infectious Disease team of HUPO B/D-HPP. She has taught the summer Proteomics Course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for over ten years, and is Senior Editor for mSystems, Associate Editor for the Journal of Proteome Research and on the Editorial Boards of Molecular Systems Biology and Molecular & Cellular Proteomics. She was recognized with the Bordoli Prize from the British Mass Spectrometry Society (2001), NIDA Avant-Garde Award for HIV/AIDS Research (2008), Human Frontiers Science Program Young Investigator Award (2009), Early Career Award in Mass Spectrometry from ACS (2011), ASMS Research Award (2012), Molecular Cellular Proteomics Lectureship (2013), Mallinckrodt Scholar Award (2015), Discovery Award in Proteomic Sciences at HUPO (2017), and the Princeton University Graduate Mentoring Award (2020).
