Assistant Professor

Contact Information:
Email: rscott1@lsuhsc.edu
Office Phone: 318-675-6263
Laboratory Phone: 318-675-4180
Office Fax: 318-675-5764

Education/Training:
Postdoctoral Study, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-Shreveport
Ph.D., Biochemistry, 1997, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
B.S., Biochemistry, 1990, Pennsylvania State University

Major Research Interests:  Mechanisms for Epstein-Barr virus-mediated tumor progression

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a prevalent herpesvirus that infects greater than 95% of the world’s adult population, usually without consequence.  However, in some cases, the virus is associated with the development of lymphoid and epithelial malignancies.  The long-term goal of our laboratory is to delineate mechanisms by which EBV mediates tumor progression. Two major areas are currently being investigated.  The first research area involves understanding how the terminal repeats of EBV influence the expression of latent membrane proteins 1 and 2A, known EBV oncoproteins.  The second area involves determining epigenetic changes induced upon EBV infection that can contribute to tumorigenesis, and whether the epigenetic changes are retained upon loss of the virus.

Representative Publications:

Scott, R.S., K.Y. Truong, and J.-M. H. Vos. 1997.  Replication initiation and elongation forks rates within a differentially expressed human multicopy locus in early S phase.  Nucleic Acids Res.  25: 4505-4512.

Scott, R.S., E.J. McMahon, S.M. Pop, E.A. Reap, R. Caricchio, P.L. Cohen, H.S. Earp, and G.K. Matsushima.  2001.  Phagocytosis and clearance of apoptotic cells is mediated by Mer. Nature. 411: 207-211.

Moody C.A., R.S. Scott, T. Su, J.W. Sixbey.  2003.  Length of Epstein-Barr Virus Termini as a Determinant of Epithelial Cell Clonal Emergence.  J. Virol. 77: 8555-61.

Wagner, H-J.  R. S. Scott, D. Buchwald, and J.W. Sixbey.  2004.  Peripheral blood lymphocytes express recombinase activating genes (RAG) 1 and 2 during Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-induced infectious mononucleosis.  J. Infect Dis. 190(5):979-84.

Scott, R.S., C.A. Moody, and J. Sixbey.  2005.  Epstein-Barr virus and oral malignancies.  In: Robertson E (ed). Epstein-Barr virus: Pathogenesis, Molecular Biology, and Infection.  Horizon Scientific Press/Caister Academic Press, Norfolk, U.K.

Moody, C. A, R. S. Scott, N. Amirghahari, C-A. Nathan, L.S. Young, C.W. Dawson, J.W. Sixbey.  2005.  Modulation of the cell growth regulator mTOR by Epstein-Barr virus-encoded LMP2A. J. Virol.: 79(9):5499-5506.

Jiang, R. R. S. Scott, and L. Hutt-Fletcher. 2006.   Epstein-Barr virus shed in saliva is high in B-cell-tropic glycoprotein gp42.  J Virol.  80(14): 7281-7283.

Ikuta, K., S. K. Srinivas, T. Schacker, J.-I. Miyagi. R. S. Scott, J. W. Sixbey.  2008.  Points of Recombination in P3HR-1-Derived Heterogeneous (het) DNA as an Index to EBV DNA Recombinogenic Events In Vivo.  J. Virol. 82(23):11516-25.

Repic, A.M, R. S. Scott, M. Shi. J. W. Sixbey. 2010. Augmented LMP1 Expression from Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) Episomes with Minimal Terminal Repeats.  J. Virol. 84(5):2236-44. 

Ikuta, K., M. Ding, F. Zhang, J. W. Sixbey, and R. S. Scott.  2011.  Epithelial Cell Retention of Transcriptionally Active, P3HR1-Derived Heterogeneous (het) EBV DNA with Concurrent Loss of Parental Virus.  J Virol. 85(15): 7634-7543.

All Publications: Pubmed