Brett Hurst
Animal, Dairy, & Vet Sciences
Research Associate Professor

Educational Background
Biography
Dr. Hurst has worked for the Institute for Antiviral Research since 2006. He completed his M.S. working with influenza virus and his Ph.D. with Enteroviruses.
Teaching Interests
Virology
Biotechnology
Antiviral Therapies
Research Interests
Evaluation of antiviral therapies in cell culture an animal models of disease. I have a particular focus on influenza viruses, picornaviruses, and of course coronaviruses. Our focus at the Institute for Antiviral Research is to recognize emerging viral infectious diseases and establish cell culture and animal models to evaluate therapies and vaccines.
Awards
Graduate Mentor of the Year, 2025
Quinney College of Agriculture and Natural Resources
1st Place Ph.D. Oral Presentation, 2018
Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Science Student Research Symposium
Poster Award, 2018
International Society for Antiviral Research
Publications | Abstracts
- Rowley, K.J, Singh, V., Roberts, A., Heang, K.A, Venkatasubramanian, P.B, Konakondla, J.V, Fared, D., Lu, M., Hurst, B.L, Hancock, W.W, Babcock, G.J, Robinson, L.N, (2025). #1035 Differential impacts of APRIL and APRIL/BAFF inhibition on immune populations: implications for IgAN treatment and protective immunity. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation *
An asterisk (*) at the end of a publication indicates that it has not been peer-reviewed.
Publications | Journal Articles
Academic Journal
- Hurst, B., Julander, J., Wang, H., (2025). Structure-Activity Relationship Studies Towards Analogues of Pleconaril as Novel Enterovirus-D68 Capsid-Targeting Antivirals.. bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology, doi: 10.1101/2025.08.08.668114
- Tuttle, J.B, Allais, C., Allerton, C.M, Anderson, A.S, Arcari, J.T, Aschenbrenner, L.M, Avery, M., Bellenger, J., Berritt, S., Boras, B., Boscoe, B.P, Buzon, L.M, Cardin, R.D, Carlo, A.A, Coffman, K.J, Dantonio, A., Di, L., Eng, H., Farley, K.A, Ferre, R.A, Gajiwala, K.S, Gibson, S.A, Greasley, S.E, Hurst, B.L, Kadar, E.P, Kalgutkar, A.S, Lachapelle, E.A, Lanyon, L.F, Lee, J., Lee, J., Lian, Y., Liu, W., Martinez-Alsina, L.A, Mason, S.W, Noell, S., Novak, J., Obach, R.S, Ogilvie, K., O'Neil, S.V, Ostner, G., Owena, D.R, Patel, N.C, Petterson, M., Singh, R.S, Rai, D.K, Reese, M.R, Sakata, S., Sammons, M.F, Sathish, J.G, Sharma, R., Steppan, C.M, Stewart, A., Updyke, L., Verhoest, P.R, Wei, L., Wright, S.W, Yang, E., Yang, Q., Zhu, Y., (2025). Discovery of Nirmatrelvir (PF-07321332): A Potent Orally Active Inhibitor of the Severe Cute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) Main Protease. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c02561
- Gibson, S.A, Liu, Y., Li, R., Hurst, B., Fan, Z., Siddharthan, V., Larson, D.P, Sheesley, A.Y, Stewart, R., Kunzler, M., Polejaeva, I., Van Wettere, A., Moisyadi, S., Morrey, J.D, Tarbet, B., Wang, Z., (2024). Differences in Susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Transgenic hACE2-Hamster Founder Lines. Viruses, 16:10, doi: 10.3390/v16101625
- Garnsey, M.R, Robinson, M.C, Nguyen, L.T, Cardin, R., Tillotson, J., Mashalidis, E., Yu, A., Aschenbrenner, L., Balesano, A., Behzadi, A., Boras, B., Chang, J.S, Eng, H., Ephron, A., Foley, T., Ford, K.K, Frick, J.M, Gibson, S.A, Hao, L., Hurst, B.L, Kalgutkar, A.S, Korczynska, M., Lengyel-Zhand, Z., Gao, L., Meredith, H.R, Patel, N.C, Polivkova, J., Rai, D., Rose, C.R, Rothan, H., Sakata, S.K, Vargo, T.R, Qi, W., Wu, H., Liu, Y., Yurgelonis, I., Zhang, J., Zhu, Y., Zhang, L., Lee, A.A, (2024). Discovery of SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PLpro) inhibitors with efficacy in a murine infection model. Science Advances, 10:35, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.ado4288
- Leekha, A., Saeedi, A., Sefat, K.M, Kumar, M., Martinez-Paniagua, M., Damian, A., Kulkarni, R., Reichel, K., Rezvan, A., Masoumi, S., Liu, X., Cooper, L.J, Sebastian, M., Sands, C.M, Das, V.E, Patel, N.B, Hurst, B.L, Varadarajan, N., (2024). Multi-antigen intranasal vaccine protects against challenge with sarbecoviruses and prevents transmission in hamsters. Nature Communications, 15:1, doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-50133-2
- Hurst, B., (2024). An intranasal nanoparticle STING agonist protects against respiratory viruses in animal models. Nature Communications, 15, doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-50234-y
- Gibson, S.A, Hurst, B.L, (2024). A Second-Generation Oral SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitor Clinical Candidate for the Treatment of COVID-19. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02469
- Spengler, J.R, Carter, K., Delang, L., Durantel, D., Gowen, B.B, Herrero, L.J, Hurst, B.L, Janeba, Z., Jordan, R., Luo, D., Meier, C., Moffat, J., Rocha-Pereira, J., Seley-Radtke, K.L, Welch, S.R, Schang, L.M, (2023). Meeting report: 36th International Conference on Antiviral Research in Lyon, France – March 13–17, 2023. Antiviral Research, 217, 105678. doi: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2023.105678
- Honda-Okubo, Y., Sakala, I.G, Andre, F., Tarbet, B., Hurst, B., Petrovsky, N., (2023). An Advax-CpG55.2 adjuvanted recombinant hemagglutinin vaccine provides immunity against H7N9 influenza in adult and neonatal mice. Vaccine, 5592-5602. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2023.07.061
- Lane, T.R, Fu, J., Sherry, B., Tarbet, B., Hurst, B., Riabova, O., Kazakova, E., Egorova, A., Clarke, P., Leser, J.S, Frost, J., Rudy, M., Tyler, K.L, Klose, T., Volobueva, A.S, Velyaevskaya, S.V, Zarubaev, V.V, Kuhn, R.J, Makarov, V., Ekins, S., (2023). Efficacy of an isoxazole-3-carboxamide analog of pleconaril in mouse models of Enterovirus-D68 and Coxsackie B5. Antiviral Research, doi: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2023.105654
- Spengler, J.R, Carter, K., Delang, L., Durantel, D., Gowen, B., Herrero, L.J, Hurst, B., Janeba, Z., Jordan, R., Luo, D., Meier, C., Moffat, J., Rocha-Pereira, J., Seley-Radtke, K.L, Welch, S.R, Schang, L.M, (2023). Meeting report: 36th International Conference on Antiviral Research in Lyon, France - March 13-17, 2023. Antiviral Research, 217, 105678. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2023.105678
- Peterson, C.J, Hurst, B., Evans, W., Van Wettere, A., Gibson, S.A, Smee, D.F, Tarbet, B., (2023). Human IVIG treatment in a neurological disease model for Enterovirus A71 infection in 28-day-old AG129 mice. Virology580, 62-72. doi: 10.1016/j.virol.2023.02.002
- Owen, D.R, Allerton, C.M, Anderson, A.S, Aschenbrenner, L., Avery, M., Berritt, S., Boras, B., Cardin, R.D, Carlo, A., Coffman, K.J, Dantonio, A., Di, L., Eng, H., Ferre, R., Gajiwala, K.S, Gibson, S.A, Greasley, S.E, Hurst, B.L, Kadar, E.P, Kalgutkar, A.S, Lee, J.C, Lee, J., Liu, W., Mason, S.W, Noell, S., Novak, J.J, Obach, R.S, Ogilvie, K., Patel, N.C, Petterson, M., Rai, D.K, Reese, M.R, Sammons, M.F, Sathish, J.G, Singh, R.S, Steppan, C.M, Stewart, A.E, Tuttle, J.B, Updyke, L., Verhoest, P.R, Wei, L., Yang, Q., Zhu, Y., (2021). An oral SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitor clinical candidate for the treatment of COVID-19. Science, 374:6575, 1586-1593. doi: 10.1126/science.abl4784
- Gawriljuk, V.O, Zin, P.P, Puhl, A.C, Zorn, K.M, Foil, D.H, Lane, T.R, Hurst, B.L, Tavella, T.A, Costa, F.T, Lakshmanane, P., Bernatchez, J., Godoy, A.S, Oliva, G., Siqueira-Neto, J.L, Madrid, P.B, Ekins, S., (2021). Machine Learning Models Identify Inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 61:9, 4224-4235. doi: 10.1021/acs.jcim.1c00683
- Reynolds, D., Huesemann, M., Edmundson, S., Sims, A., Hurst, B.L, Cady, S., Beirne, N., Freeman, J., Berger, A., Gao, S., (2021). Viral inhibitors derived from macroalgae, microalgae, and cyanobacteria: A review of antiviral potential throughout pathogenesis. Algal Research, 57, 102331. doi: 10.1016/j.algal.2021.102331
- Arroyo, R., Grant, S.N, Colombo, M., Salvioni, L., Corsi, F., Truffi, M., Ottolina, D., Hurst, B.L, Salzberg, M., Prosperi, D., Kingma, P.S, (2021). Full-Length Recombinant hSP-D Binds and Inhibits SARS-CoV-2. Biomolecules, 11:8, 1114. doi: 10.3390/biom11081114
- Hahn, F., Wangen, C., Häge, S., Peter, A.S, Dobler, G., Hurst, B.L, Julander, J.G, Fuchs, J., Ruzsics, Z., Überla, K., Jäck, H., Ptak, R., Muehler, A., Gröppel, M., Vitt, D., Peelen, E., Kohlhof, H., Marschall, M., (2020). IMU-838, a Developmental DHODH Inhibitor in Phase II for Autoimmune Disease, Shows Anti-SARS-CoV-2 and Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Efficacy In Vitro. Viruses, 12:12, 1394. doi: 10.3390/v12121394
An asterisk (*) at the end of a publication indicates that it has not been peer-reviewed.
Publications | Other
Other
- Gilliam, E., Mason, J., Page, C.M, Hurst, B., (2025). Micro-CT Evaluation of Bone Changes in Osteoarthritic Sheep Treated With Gene Therapy via TIMP-3. Digital commons USU
An asterisk (*) at the end of a publication indicates that it has not been peer-reviewed.