At the TRR179 conference discussing the elimination and persistence of hepatitis virus infections in Freiburg, Germany, Alex delivered a talk titled, "Mechanistic insights into structure and function of hepatitis E virus ORF1 protein". This work probes the function of ORF1, which has been a somewhat controversial debate in the field. This work seeks to elucidate the actual function(s) of the protein in order to provide a better understanding of the HEV infection process.