John J. Dennehy

John Dennehy is a virologist who is interested in all aspects of virus biology ranging from virus molecular biology to virus ecology and evolution. Dr. Dennehy earned a Ph.D. at Clark University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University and the State University of New York At Albany prior to joining the faculty at Queens College in 2007. Research in the Dennehy Laboratory employs bacteriophages, rotaviruses, and coronaviruses as model organisms to test predictions generated by theory and mathematical modeling. We probe how viruses evolve at the molecular level to best exploit host cells and propagate in host populations. Additionally, we explore gene expression regulatory mechanisms to determine how processes such as virus infection, assembly, and life history event timing are controlled. Other topics of interest include the biology of virus collective infection via extracellular vesicles, virus coevolution and exploitation of hosts, phage therapy, and virus systems biology. Dr. Dennehy has published over 50 articles, book chapters and conference papers on virus biology. He is also a Senior Editor for Microbiology Resource Announcements, an Associate Editor for Virus Evolution, and a Curator for the American Society of Microbiology’s COVID-19 Research Registry.

Awards and Grants

• Phylodynamics and Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in NYC (NYC Department of Environmental Protection)
• Metapopulation Modeling to Develop Strategies to Reduce COVID-19 Transmission in Public Spaces (National Science Foundation)
• Novel Strategies for Treating Biofilm-Forming Pathogens with Phage Therapy (National Institutes of Health)
• Consequences and Control of Randomness in the Timing of Intracellular Events (National Institutes of Health)

Professional Affiliations and Memberships

• American Society for Microbiology
• American Society of Naturalists
• American Society for Virology
• Society for the Study of Evolution
• World Society for Virology

Courses Taught

• General Microbiology
• Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases
• Evolution
• Phage Hunters

Publications

• Kannoly S, Gao T, Dey S, Wang I-N, Singh A & Dennehy JJ. 2020. Optimum threshold minimizes noise in timing of intracellular events. iScience 23, Issue 6, 26 June 2020, 101186.
• Hoxie I & Dennehy JJ. 2020. Intragenic recombination influences rotavirus diversity and evolution. Virus Evolution 6: vez059.
• Ghusinga K, Dennehy JJ & Singh A. 2017. First-passage time approach to controlling noise in timing of intra-cellular events. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 114: 693–698.
• Dennehy JJ. 2016. Evolutionary ecology of virus emergence. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences: The Year in Evolutionary Biology 1387: 1-23.
• Esposito LA, Gupta S, Prasad A, Streiter F & Dennehy JJ. 2016. Evolutionary interpretations of mycobacteriophage biodiversity and host-range through the analysis of codon usage bias. Microbial Genomics doi: 10.1099/mgen.0.000079.
• Ahmadi M, Torshizi MAK, Rahimi S & Dennehy JJ. 2016. Prophylactic bacteriophage administration more effective than post-infection administration in reducing Salmonella enteritidis shedding in quails. Frontiers in Microbiology 09 August 2016.
• Pope WH, Bowman CA, Russell DA, Jacobs-Sera D, Science Education Alliance Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA PHAGES), Phage Hunters Integrating Research and Education (PHIRE), Mycobacterial Genetics Course (MGC), Cresawn SG, Jacobs WR Jr, Hendrix RW, Lawrence JG, & Hatfull GF. 2015. Whole genome comparison of a large collection of mycobacteriophages reveals a continuum of phage genetic diversity. eLife 4:e06416.
• Ford BE, Sun B, Carpino J, Chapler ES, Ching J, Choi Y, Jhun K, Kim JD, Lallos GG, Morgenstern R, Singh S, Theja S, & Dennehy JJ. 2014. Frequency and fitness consequences of bacteriophage φ6 host range mutations. PLoS ONE 10.1371/journal.pone.0113078.  
• Dennehy JJ. 2014. What ecologists can tell virologists. Annual Review of Microbiology 68:117–35.
• Singh A & Dennehy JJ. 2014. Stochastic holin expression can account for lysis time variation in the bacteriophage λ. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 11, 20140140.