Our research
Our research links new insights into the causes and effects of infectious pathogens, to understand how clinical syndromes affect human health at an individual, community and population scale.
Global health
Much of our work focuses on diseases of major relevance to global health, including HIV, influenza, SARS-CoV-2, malaria, Salmonella Typhi and Paratyphi, Streptococcus pyogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus. We have projects with partners in Africa and Asia, designed to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of infectious diseases, pathogen transmission within communities and households, and host immunity to infection and vaccines. Our work aims to improve disease surveillance and control and contribute to the development of novel diagnostics, vaccines and therapies for use in low and middle-income countries.
Vaccines and monoclonals
Vaccines are vital in the prevention and control of infectious diseases, and the availability of new technologies and scientific understanding has increased both the speed and the breadth of infections (and other diseases) for which vaccines are being developed. Our work aims to better understand the immunological mechanisms underlying vaccine responses, improve understanding of response to vaccination and requirements for immunosuppressed patients (and where the use of monoclonal antibody treatments may be advantageous) as well as partnering with academic and commercial partners to deliver vaccine trials from experimental phase to late phase efficacy testing.
Controlled human infection models
Controlled human infection models (CHIMs) can be used to understand the most important mechanisms underpinning the cause and the potential prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases. These studies can play a pivotal role in understanding how pathogens result in infection and how the human immune system responds to infection.
In Sheffield, we have broad expertise in many CHIMs relating to Salmonella, malaria and other pathogens with global health importance. We are working to develop new CHIMs, specifically as tools to identify new routes to discovering and evaluating new vaccine approaches.
Diagnostics
We urgently need better diagnostic tests, especially for use in low-resource settings and to guide early patient management and host/pathogen-directed therapy. Using systematic approaches for collecting data and samples, and combining laboratory readouts with new bioinformatic approaches in machine learning and AI, we aim to discover and validate new diagnostic approaches for the accurate detection of pathogens and early interpretation of the host immune/inflammatory response.