Influenza A virus (IAV) is a major respiratory pathogen that causes significant morbidity and mortality in millions of people every year world-wide. Current therapeutics face many barriers including drug-resistant mutants, toxicity and annual vaccine updating. Dr. Kambez Benam has led an effort in developing a set of small molecules which can be used to treat and prevent IAV infection by targeting the host rather than the virus. These therapeutics would eliminate the possibility of viral drug-resistance and are expected to be applicable to a broad spectrums of IAV strains and lead way to similar pathways for treating other types of viruses.