Charles Rice

Charles M. Rice
Born	Template:Birth year and age
Nationality	American
Occupation	Virologist, academic
Employer	The Rockefeller University; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Known for	Discovery of the hepatitis C virus
Awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2020)

Charles Moen Rice (born 1952) is an American virologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2020 for his contributions to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. His decades of research into the molecular biology of hepatitis C were instrumental in developing diagnostic tools and curative antiviral therapies that have saved millions of lives worldwide. Rice spent much of his career at Washington University in St. Louis and later at The Rockefeller University in New York City, where he served as head of the Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease. He shared the 2020 Nobel Prize with Harvey J. Alter and Michael Houghton, each of whom made distinct contributions to identifying and characterizing the virus responsible for a global epidemic of chronic liver disease. In addition to his Nobel Prize, Rice has been recognized with numerous scientific honors over the course of his career. As of 2025, Rice continues to be active in research and scientific communication, advocating publicly for universal access to hepatitis C treatments and engaging in collaborative studies on the epigenetic and chromatin biology dimensions of viral hepatitis.

Career

Early Research and Washington University

Charles Rice began his career in virology with a focus on RNA viruses and their replication mechanisms. He joined the faculty of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he established a research program studying flaviviruses and, increasingly, the hepatitis C virus (HCV). During this period, Rice and his colleagues made critical advances in understanding the molecular biology of HCV, a virus that had been identified in 1989 by Michael Houghton and his team at Chiron Corporation. While Houghton's work identified the genetic sequence of the virus and Harvey Alter's earlier epidemiological studies at the National Institutes of Health had established the existence of a previously unknown form of "non-A, non-B" hepatitis transmitted through blood transfusions, a central scientific challenge remained: demonstrating that the hepatitis C virus alone was sufficient to cause disease.

Rice's laboratory focused on the molecular virology of HCV, working to construct functional genetic clones of the virus that could replicate in cell culture. This line of research was essential because, without the ability to grow the virus in laboratory conditions, it was impossible to definitively prove that HCV caused hepatitis or to develop effective therapies and vaccines. Rice identified a previously uncharacterized region at the end of the HCV genome that appeared to be critical for viral replication. Through meticulous genetic engineering, he constructed a variant of the hepatitis C virus RNA that, when introduced into the livers of chimpanzees, produced the hallmarks of clinical hepatitis, including pathological changes in liver tissue and detectable virus in the blood. This work provided the final piece of evidence linking the cloned hepatitis C virus to the disease, completing the chain of causation that had been initiated by Alter's clinical observations and Houghton's molecular identification of the virus.

The Rockefeller University

Rice subsequently moved to The Rockefeller University in New York City, where he became the Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Professor and head of the Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease. At Rockefeller, Rice continued to advance the understanding of HCV biology and expanded his research into the development of cell culture systems for studying the virus. His laboratory played a central role in creating robust in vitro systems that allowed researchers around the world to study the HCV life cycle and to screen potential antiviral compounds.

The development of these cell culture systems was a pivotal step in the eventual creation of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) drugs, which transformed the treatment of hepatitis C from a regimen of interferon-based therapies with limited efficacy and significant side effects into short-course oral treatments capable of curing more than 95 percent of patients. The introduction of DAA drugs beginning in 2013 represented one of the most significant therapeutic advances in modern medicine, and Rice's foundational research was a key enabler of this progress.

Ongoing Research and Advocacy

As of 2025, Rice remains engaged in scientific research and public discourse regarding hepatitis C and related topics. In a July 2025 interview with EL PAÍS, Rice spoke about the disparity between the existence of curative hepatitis C drugs and the lack of universal access to those treatments, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where the burden of disease is greatest. He stated that it is "a crime that a drug exists that could cure everyone yet not everybody has access to it," underscoring the gap between scientific achievement and public health implementation.

Rice has also continued to pursue new research directions. In a July 2025 Nature publication, Rice participated in a Q&A alongside Yael David, a researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discussing the intersection of chromatin biology and hepatitis research. The collaboration explored how epigenetic regulatory mechanisms—the chemical modifications to DNA and histone proteins that control gene expression—may influence the course of hepatitis C infection and the host immune response. This line of inquiry represents an expansion of Rice's research interests beyond classical virology into the emerging field of viral epigenetics.

Rice's public advocacy on behalf of universal access to hepatitis C treatment has placed him among a group of Nobel laureates and public health figures who have used their scientific authority to draw attention to inequities in global health care delivery. The World Health Organization has set a target of eliminating hepatitis C as a public health threat by 2030, but progress toward this goal has been uneven, with high drug costs and limited screening infrastructure remaining significant barriers in many countries.

The Hepatitis C Virus and Its Discovery

The discovery of the hepatitis C virus, for which Rice shared the 2020 Nobel Prize, resolved a medical mystery that had persisted for decades. By the 1970s, it was well established that viral hepatitis could be caused by hepatitis A (transmitted through contaminated food and water) and hepatitis B (transmitted through blood and bodily fluids). However, a significant proportion of cases of post-transfusion hepatitis could not be attributed to either known virus. Harvey Alter and his colleagues at the National Institutes of Health systematically demonstrated through studies of transfusion recipients that a previously unknown infectious agent was responsible for these cases, which they termed "non-A, non-B hepatitis."

In 1989, Michael Houghton and his team at Chiron Corporation succeeded in cloning the genome of the mystery virus, which they named hepatitis C. This was a landmark achievement, as it was the first time a virus had been identified using molecular cloning techniques without first being visualized or grown in culture. The cloning of HCV enabled the development of blood screening tests that dramatically reduced the incidence of transfusion-transmitted hepatitis worldwide.

Rice's contribution completed the third and final step in establishing causation: demonstrating that the cloned virus, by itself, could cause disease. His genetic studies of the HCV genome and his proof-of-concept experiments in animal models provided definitive evidence that HCV was the causative agent of chronic non-A, non-B hepatitis. Together, the work of Alter, Houghton, and Rice constituted a complete scientific narrative—from clinical observation, to molecular identification, to biological proof of causation—that met the modern equivalent of Koch's postulates for establishing a pathogen as the cause of a disease.

The practical consequences of this discovery have been enormous. Chronic hepatitis C infection affects an estimated 58 million people worldwide and is a leading cause of liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer). The development of blood screening tests based on Houghton's identification of the virus virtually eliminated HCV from the blood supply in countries where screening was implemented. The subsequent development of DAA drugs, made possible in part by Rice's cell culture systems, provided a cure for the disease. These advances have collectively prevented millions of deaths from liver failure and liver cancer.

Recognition

Rice's most prominent honor is the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared equally with Harvey J. Alter and Michael Houghton "for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus." The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet cited the trio's work as having made possible the development of blood tests and antiviral medicines that have saved millions of lives.

Prior to the Nobel Prize, Rice received numerous awards recognizing his contributions to virology and infectious disease research. These include the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (2016), which he shared with Alter and Houghton, and which is often considered a precursor to the Nobel Prize in biomedical sciences. He has also been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and has received honors from scientific societies in the fields of virology, hepatology, and microbiology.

In 2025, Rice continued to be sought after as a commentator and collaborator on matters relating to hepatitis C research, global health equity, and the application of new scientific tools—such as chromatin biology—to the study of viral infections. His interview with EL PAÍS in July 2025 and his collaboration with Yael David published in Nature that same month reflect his continued prominence in the scientific community.

Legacy

The work of Charles Rice, together with that of Harvey Alter and Michael Houghton, represents one of the most complete stories of disease discovery and therapeutic development in modern medicine. The identification of the hepatitis C virus progressed from clinical observation of an unknown disease, to molecular identification of its causative agent, to proof of biological causation, and ultimately to the development of curative treatments—all within a span of approximately four decades. Rice's specific contributions—his elucidation of the viral genome's functional regions, his demonstration that the cloned virus could cause disease, and his development of cell culture systems for drug screening—were essential links in this chain.

The direct-acting antiviral drugs that emerged from this research have fundamentally changed the prognosis for patients with chronic hepatitis C. Where the disease was once a leading cause of liver transplantation and liver cancer death, it is now curable in the vast majority of cases with short courses of oral medication. However, as Rice himself has emphasized, the existence of a cure does not equate to the elimination of the disease. Millions of people worldwide remain undiagnosed or unable to access treatment due to cost, infrastructure limitations, and lack of political commitment. Rice's public statements on this subject have contributed to ongoing global advocacy efforts aimed at achieving the WHO's hepatitis C elimination targets.

Rice's more recent work on chromatin biology and viral epigenetics suggests that his legacy may extend beyond hepatitis C into broader questions about how viruses interact with the host genome at the epigenetic level. This research direction, undertaken in collaboration with investigators at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, reflects a continuing commitment to fundamental scientific inquiry even after the receipt of the highest honors in his field.