Associate Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis and of Comparative Medicine
Dr. Lindenbach recognizes that he has enjoyed certain privileges as a straight, white male, and actively seeks to train a diverse group of students and postdocs: to “pay forward” the excellent training that he has received. Personal obstacles that Dr. Lindenbach has overcome, or is overcoming, include: strabismus (crossed eyes) since birth, childhood speech impediment, broken home and early death of his father, adolescent poverty, first generation to attend college. Dr. Lindenbach is also currently beating brain cancer and is an advocate for brain tumor research.
Dr. Lindenbach grew up in the Chicago suburbs and attended University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, where he majored in Biology. He spent time as a technician in the laboratory of Ralph S. Wolfe, co-discoverer of the Archaea and biochemist extraordinaire who elucidated the mechanisms of methanogenesis. This experience inspired a deep appreciation for evolution, which led him to PhD studies in virology at Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied under Dr. Charlie Rice. During this time, Dr. Lindenbach learned how to manipulate (+) RNA virus cDNAs and had the pleasure to witness Nobel Prize-winning (2020) work being done in the lab on hepatitis C virus (HCV). His thesis work utilized Sindbis virus (Family Togaviridae) replicons to study the role of the yellow fever virus (Family Flaviviridae) secreted NS1 glycoprotein in flavivirus RNA replication. Dr. Lindenbach then completed a postdoc in Paul Ahlquist’s HHMI lab at University of Wisconsin, where he used yeast as a model system to identify host factors and viral RNA structures involved in (+)-strand RNA virus replication. He then returned to Charlie’s lab, which had moved to Rockefeller University, to complete a second postdoc; during this additional training period he developed the first robust system to study infectious HCV in cell culture.
Dr. Lindenbach was recruited to Yale in 2006 as a member of the Section of Microbial Pathogenesis (now Department of Microbial Pathogenesis) and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Comparative Medicine. Dr. Lindenbach is an active member of the Yale Center for RNA Science and Medicine, the Yale Cancer Center, the Yale Liver Center, and the Yale Biological Safety Committee. Since 2006, Dr. Lindenbach has served on the Admissions Committee for the Microbiology track within the Yale BBS graduate program. In addition, he has been deeply involved in the formal teaching of Ph.D. students in several graduate-level courses at Yale School of Medicine, including, for the past eight years, as the Course Director of our graduate-level virology course, MBIO 734a “Molecular Biology of Animal Viruses”. In addition to formal lecturing, he has mentored Ph.D. students in preparation for their qualifying exams, participated on numerous thesis committees, evaluated submitted dissertations, and has mentored two Yale PhD students in Immunobiology. To date, he has served on eleven Ph.D. thesis committees across four Yale Department and has been a member of the Executive Committee for Yale’s NIH T32 Virology Training Grant since 2013, monitoring progress of trainees, helping to structure our curricula, and organized a symposium to showcase virology training at Yale. In addition to graduate-level training, Dr. Lindenbach has mentored 13 Postdoctoral Associates, Associate Research Scientists, and Visiting Professors, including one Fulbright Fellow; he has mentored four Yale undergrads and one from Middlebury College; and has hosted ten visiting master’s degree candidates from other institutions. In brief, Dr. Lindenbach’s contributions to the Yale Microbiology Track include formal teaching at courses, mentorship of Yale PhD and MD/PhD candidates and postdocs, administration, and event planning.
Dr. Lindenbach lives in North Haven with his wife and two daughters and is known for his outdoor and indoor cooking. He loves to ride his bike around New Haven and environs and loves to travel.