Emerging viral infections are an ever-present threat to human health. The risk of transmission of viruses to previously unexposed populations has increased as a result of increased global travel, global warming and changes in our ecosystem and human behaviour. I have worked on a number of emerging viral infections including hepatitis C and E, Ebola virus, emerging rhabdoviruses in Uganda, CCHF, SARS-CoV-2 and most recently AAV2. My laboratory uses next generation sequencing to detect new and emerging viruses in Uganda and in the UK. We are engaged in improving diagnostic capacity so that undiagnosed new or emerging infections may be detected at source more rapidly in the future, allowing for early control interventions. We aim to investigate drivers of virus evolution using B and T cell functional assays including neutralization, ELISpot and flow cytometry.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland