Carolina Arias

Dr. Carolina Arias serves as the Principal Investigator of the Arias Lab, currently based at the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub in San Francisco. Previously affiliated with the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), her research focuses on virus-host interactions, particularly exploring molecular mechanisms employed by viruses like Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus (KSHV) and Zika to manipulate cellular machinery. Her lab investigates viral control of protein synthesis, folding, and the role of viral small open reading frames (smORFs).

• Affiliations: Chan Zuckerberg BioHub (current), UCSB Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (prior).
• Key Projects: ZIKV inhibition by azithromycin, KSHV genomic annotation, viral modulation of the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR).

Her team includes graduate and undergraduate researchers studying viral impacts on eye development, single-cell transcriptomics of KSHV infection, and CRISPR-based mutagenesis of viral genomes. The lab emphasizes computational analysis of high-throughput data to uncover viral strategies for hijacking host cellular processes.