Rate My Professor Anthony Fehr

Anthony Fehr is an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas, where he started his independent laboratory in 2018. He also serves as the Molecular Biosciences Research Program Coordinator and Director of Animal Research Operations in the KU Office of Research. Fehr completed his postdoctoral training in coronavirus replication and pathogenesis at the University of Iowa under the mentorship of Dr. Stanley Perlman. He earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2011, studying the molecular virology of human cytomegalovirus in Dr. Dong Yu's laboratory, and received a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2005, where he initiated his virus studies in Dr. James Van Etten's lab.

Fehr's research centers on the interplay between the host innate immune system and viral infections, with a focus on how post-translational modifications such as ADP-ribosylation drive antiviral responses and how coronaviruses counteract these defenses. His laboratory employs molecular, biochemical, and virological approaches to investigate proteins like PARP14 and the coronavirus macrodomain (Mac1), developing novel small-molecule inhibitors and attenuated vaccines. Key publications include “Coronaviruses: an overview of their replication and pathogenesis” (Fehr and Perlman, 2015), cited over 5,600 times; “Dysregulated type I interferon and inflammatory monocyte-macrophage responses cause lethal pneumonia in SARS-CoV-infected mice” (Channappanavar et al., 2016, 1,797 citations); “β-Coronaviruses use lysosomes for egress instead of the biosynthetic secretory pathway” (Ghosh et al., 2020, 774 citations); and recent works such as “Identification of a series of pyrrolo-pyrimidine-based SARS-CoV-2 Mac1 inhibitors that repress coronavirus replication” (Pfannenstiel et al., mBio, 2025). Fehr has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and the University of Kansas Scholarly Achievement Award, along with a $1 million National Science Foundation grant for research on coronavirus macrodomains.