UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Craig E. Cameron, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State, has been appointed Holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Cameron's research focuses on the development of strategies to treat or to prevent infections by RNA viruses. Cameron and his team have used poliovirus and hepatitis-C virus (HCV) as their primary model systems. These studies have led to discoveries that have moved Cameron's lab into many new areas, including vaccine development, enzyme dynamics, vesicular trafficking, innate immunity and mitochondrial molecular biology.
Cameron's previous awards and honors include a Dean's Climate and Diversity Award from the Penn State Eberly College of Science in 2011 and a Distinguished Service Award from the Penn State Eberly College of Science Alumni Society in 2010. In 2007, Penn State selected him to serve as a Fellow of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation's Academic Leadership Program. In 2005, Penn State awarded him the Paul Berg Professorship. In 2003, he received the American Heart Association Established Investigator Award and, in 2002, he was honored by Penn State with the Louis Martarano Career Development Professorship. In 1997, he received the National Cancer Institute's Howard Temin Award.
Cameron holds numerous patents for innovative laboratory techniques and he has consulted for several pharmaceutical companies. His professional memberships include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society for Microbiology, the American Society for Virology and the RNA Society. He has presented invited lectures at scientific symposia throughout the United States, Europe and Asia, and he has published scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the Journal of Virology, PLoS Pathogens, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature and Science. In addition, Cameron has contributed chapters to several textbooks.
Before joining the Penn State faculty in 1997, Cameron was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Stephen J. Benkovic of Penn State's Department of Chemistry. Cameron was a National Institutes of Health predoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Jonathan Leis, where he earned a doctoral degree in biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University in 1993. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry, magna cum laude, at Howard University in 1987.