Welcome to the Emerging Viruses Symposium
The symposium will be co-hosted with the annual influenza conference – Influenza 2016 – and will focus on applied research on surveillance and control strategies for emerging viruses.
Oral and poster presentation opportunties are available in the following applied areas of virology and serology:-
o New serological/immunological assays
o Use of surrogate viruses e.g., VLP/Pseudotype viruses, for serology
o Correlates of protection
o Standardization of serological assays
o T cell and B cell assays
o Comparative serology
o Epidemiology and control
o Immunogenicity testing of novel vaccines and therapeutic antibodies
If you are interested in presenting at this symposium, please get in touch with us on ‘fluoxford@gmail.com‘.
We look forward to your participation in Emerging Viruses 2016.
Co-Chairs:
Dr Nigel Temperton, Medway School of Pharmacy, University of Kent, UK
Dr Simon Scott, Medway School of Pharmacy, University of Kent, UK
Dr Edward Wright, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Westminster, UK
Speakers & Agenda
Session 1: Chair Dr Simon Scott
1030: Dr Janet Daly, University of Nottingham, UK
New twists on serological assays for emerging Bunya- and Flavi- viruses
1100: Dr Jason Long, Imperial College London, UK
Species difference in ANP32A underlies influenza A virus polymerase host restriction
1130: Dr Chinedu Ugwu, University of Cambridge, UK
Understanding the varying roles of Antigen presenting cells (APC) in emerging virus zoonoses
1150: Dr Alain Kohl, University of Glasgow, UK
Zika virus: properties and interactions with host cells
1220: Lunch, networking, posters
Session 2: Chair Dr Edward Wright
1300: Professor Jonathan Heeney, University of Cambridge, UK
Reservoirs and the evolution of Zoonotic Pathogens
1330: Professor Ian Goodfellow, University of Cambridge, UK
Provision of lab support during and after the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone
1400: Miss Pramila Rijal, University of Oxford, UK
Isolation and characterization of human monoclonal antibodies to Ebola Virus glycoprotein with an aim for therapeutic use
1420: Professor Sunetra Gupta, University of Oxford, UK
The role of epitopes of limited diversity in the antigenic evolution of influenza
1450: Dr Keith Grehan, University of Kent, UK
Viral Pseudotypes and In-silica analysis tools for studies of pathogen host switching
1510: Dr Ashley C Banyard, Animal and Plant Health Agency, UK
The challenge of emerging lyssaviruses
1540: Refreshments, networking, posters
Session 3: Chair Dr Nigel Temperton
1610: Professor Maria Zambon (Keynote), Public Health England, UK
Emerging viruses: The UK response
1640: Dr Lorraine McElhinney, Animal and Plant Health Agency, UK
Increased detection of hantaviruses in the UK
1710: Dr Mark Page, The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), UK
Responding to the need for reference standards in an outbreak situation
1740: Miss Emma Bentley, University of Westminster, UK
Exploiting pseudotypes for emerging virus research
1800: Close
If your abstract has been accepted for presentation but it does not appear in the list below, please let us know as soon as possible by email on FluOxford@gmail.com.
Establishment of reference material for serology of Zika virus infection
James Ashall, Giada Mattiuzzo, Mark Hassall, Sophie Myhill, Mark Page, Stacey Efstathiou
Department of Virology, National Institute of Biological Standards and Controls, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire
Accurate diagnosis of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection is essential not only to minimise further transmission but also to improve the understanding of viral epidemiology. ZIKV is usually associated with mild symptoms however during the ongoing outbreak in South America, the rise of Zika-associated cases of microcephaly and neurological disorders has prompted the WHO to declare an epidemic of international concern. Serological tests are used for testing patients for zika infection due to short viraemia in plasma; however they generally lack specificity and struggle to differentiate between the closely related Dengue virus. This highlights the needs for specific reagents to assure assay performance…
Establishing a WHO International Reference Reagent for Ebola virus antigen
Sophie H Myhill1, Giada Mattiuzzo, Mark Page, James Ashall, Dianna Wilkinson, Gillian Cooper, Kaetan Ladhani and Stacey Efstathiou
Department of Virology, National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, Blanche Lane, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, EN63QG, UK
NIBSC is developing an antigen Reference Reagent for Ebola virus (EBOV) to monitor the performance of diagnostic assays, as part of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) response to the 2013-2016 EBOV outbreak in Western Africa and to provision for any further outbreaks. While the preferred Ebola diagnostic assays used during the outbreak have been PCR-based methods, these could take up to 5 days from collection of the sample, transport to special facilities and analysis. At the clinic, to give a fast diagnosis to patients suspected of having Ebola virus infection, point of care (POC) tests would allow a more rapid, although less sensitive and less specific, alternative. To date, three POC antigen capture tests have approved for emergency deployment by the WHO, all based on the detection of EBOV viral protein 40 (VP40) as the target antigen…
