Dr. Rose's research interests lie in the identification and characterization of DNA herpes viruses implicated in cellular transformation and tumor induction, and in the study of host and viral proteins and cytokines that mediate these effects. A major focus is on the viral etiology of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) and other AIDS-related malignancies with regards to the interactions between viruses (retroviruses and herpes viruses) and cytokines in virus activation and tumor induction. Dr. Rose's group discovered and is characterizing two new herpes viruses that are homologs of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpes virus in two macaque species. Ongoing projects include the cloning and sequence comparison of regions of the new human and macaque herpes viruses, searching for transformation- and latency-related genes and cytokine inducing genes, and developing an animal model for studying KS in humans. Another focus is on the human cytokine oncostatin M (OSM), which has been shown to be the major autocrine/paracrine growth factor for KS. Dr. Rose is currently studying the involvement of OSM and other cytokines in fibroproliferative malignancies. Dr. Rose has also developed a novel technique using consensus-degenerate hybrid oligonucleotide primers for the identification of distantly related genes, which is being used to identify other novel retroviruses and herpes viruses.