John Purdy, PhD
John Purdy earned an undergraduate degree from Pacific University and a Ph.D. from Penn State University College of Medicine. He performed his graduate studies in the biochemistry of assembly retroviral capsid in the laboratory of Drs. Rebecca Craven and John Flanagan. Afterwards he trained in metabolomics at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University while working in the laboratories of Drs. Joshua Rabinowitz and Thomas Shenk. He has been a member of the UArizona faculty since October 2015.
Cancer Focus
Viruses, including herpesviruses, cause a significant number of cancers. Metabolism plays an essential in both cancer and virus pathogenesis. The Purdy laboratory studies virus-host metabolism interactions with a focus on the human herpesvirus cytomegalovirus (CMV). CMV causes life-threatening disease in patients undergoing treatment for cancer, including leukemia and lymphoma transplant recipients. Our goal is to discover new understanding of the molecular underpinnings of virus replication and human metabolism that can lead to novel avenues of reducing cancer-related disease.