By investigating the role of biological structure in viral infection, Mavis Agbandje-McKenna aims to understand how structure-function relationships drive biological processes. Although she is now focusing on engineering the viral capsid for gene therapy, she began with molecular-level Ph.D. work at the University of London, where she characterized a novel group of anti-tumor agents that can intercalate DNA (fitting between base pairs to inhibit replication). In postdoc fellowships at Purdue and Warwick, she studied structure and function in single-stranded DNA parvoviruses as well as the Geminiviridae and Microviridae. Agbandje-McKenna joined the faculty of the University of Florida in 1999. In Gainesville her work on ssDNA viruses has expanded further to include the newly discovered TT (Torque Teno) virus.