How infectious agents, especially newly emergent viruses, cause diseases including AIDS and AIDS-related cancers is still not completely understood. Understanding viral pathogenesis is critical to developing treatments for viral infection and infection-associated diseases.

Moses's laboratory studies viral pathogenesis with a particular emphasis on gamma herpesviruses and the development of appropriate cell-based and animal translational disease models. A major focus is the study of Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV), with the goal of deciphering the virus-host interaction and identifying therapeutic targets for KSHV-associated cancers, particularly Kaposi sarcoma (KS), an angioproliferative spindle cell tumor. Dr. Moses developed a unique endothelial cell-based in vitro model for KS, and she and her colleagues are using this model in coordination with molecular and genetic techniques to understand the role of KSHV infection in angiogenesis and tumorigenesis. Current projects are focused on understanding the role of HO-1 (a heme-degrading enzyme induced by KSHV infection that is robustly expressed in KS tumors) in KSHV pathogenesis and on determining how and why KSHV manipulates iron metabolism and antioxidant defense pathways in infected cells. They are also using a macaque homolog of KSHV, rhesus rhadinovirus (RRV), in order to benefit from a non-human primate model of disease. This work will increase understanding of KSHV pathogenesis and may identify novel therapeutic targets for KS treatment. KSHV-induced cellular proteins are also implicated in the development of other cancers. Thus, this line of research has broader implications for cancer development and therapy. Dr. Moses is also collaborating with VGTI researchers to understand the role of a novel simian herpesvirus, JM rhadinovirus (JMRV), in Japanese macaque encephalomyelitis (JME), a spontaneous inflammatory demyelinating disease that occurs in the ONPRC's Japanese macaque colony. JME represents a promising animal model for demyelinating conditions such as multiple sclerosis for which a viral and/or autoimmune component is indicated. Work by the Moses laboratory in the JME model focuses on blood-CNS and blood-spinal cord barriers and JMRV infection of endothelial cells from these specialized tissue sites. Dr.  Moses has also worked with several other viruses including HIV, SIV, Zika virus, West Nile virus and cytomegalovirus.