About
Emma Thomson is Clinical Professor of Infectious Diseases at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research and Professor of Emerging Viral Infections at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom. Her research group use next-generation sequencing (NGS) to detect new and emerging viruses in the UK and in East Africa (Uganda) and engage in improving local diagnostic capacity to allow for more rapid control interventions. Her team work on linking the genotype of viruses with the phenotype in the laboratory and in clinical settings. She worked with other centres across the UK on tracking the genotype and phenotype of SARS-CoV-2 as part of the COG-UK consortium (sequencing 2 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes across the UK). Her team led a study outlining a change in entry mechanism, tropism and immune evasion of the Omicron variant (away from TMPRSS2 and towards cathepsin-linked entry), published in Nature Microbiology. She has also led studies that have contributed to genomic epidemiology by revealing multiple introductions of SARS-CoV-2 from mainland Europe into Scotland (Nature Microbiology). Her team recently identified the adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) to be associated with hepatitis in children in the UK, published in Nature this year.
For more information: Twitter: @emcat1
