All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special
permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For
articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without
permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to
https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess.
Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature
Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for
future research directions and describes possible research applications.
Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive
positive feedback from the reviewers.
Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world.
Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly
interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the
most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.
As Editor-in-Chief of Viruses, I am pleased to announce the recipient of the Viruses 2021 Young Investigator Award, Dr. Nicholas S. Heaton, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA.
Dr. Heaton’s current work broadly focuses on understanding how respiratory RNA viruses induce inflammation and lung disease, as well as how virally induced damage is eventually repaired. His most recent study has revealed a new mechanism that prevents influenza-virus-induced lung inflammation from being transferred to a developing fetus during maternal infection.
We would like to thank the Selection Committee members, Drs. Luis Martinez- Sobrido, Dann Turner, K. Andrew White, Craig McCormick and Elizabeth White, for their evaluation of the candidates.
Congratulations to Dr. Heaton for winning this very competitive Young Investigator Award.
Eric O. Freed, Ph.D. Editor-in-Chief, Viruses Director, HIV Dynamics and Replication Program Center for Cancer Research National Cancer Institute Frederick, MD, USA
