Posters and Guidelines

Thank you for considering to present your work as a poster at event. Please submit your poster abstract online within the advertised deadlines.

Poster preparation

• Page size: Print your poster in A1 portrait format. Larger posters and those in landscape format may not be displayed due to space constraints. Also, do not use heavy printing paper or lamination.

Poster presentation

Posters will be displayed throughout the day.

• Flash-talk videos: We are pleased to offer poster presenters the opportunity to prepare a short video presentation about their poster and send it before the conference. The videos will be made available on the LPMHealthcare YouTube channel. Below is further information for sending your video presentation.
  •  See an example here: https://youtu.be/XatqenCd_IU?si=Yu1PooCD4JmSLAiz).
  • Give your presentation (no longer than 5 minutes) using Zoom or another platform of your choice.
  • Convert the video into a format compatible with YouTube (e.g., MP4).
  • Send your video to VirusesOxford@gmail.com using a file transfer program, such as MailBigFile or WeTransfer.
• Any further information about the poster presentations at this digital meeting will be available in the future.

Accepted Posters

(Presenters in Bold)

Accepted poster abstracts (Unedited) will be published below. 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 emailing VirusesOxford@gmail.com.

Development of a WHO international standard for anti-Sudan virus antibodies

Nassim Alami-Rahmouni¹, Iliana Georgana¹, Emma Bentley¹, Thomas Rudge², Julius Lutwama³, Wendy Boone⁴, Mark Cashin⁴, Mark Kortepeter⁴, Joseph Sgherza⁴, Michael Selorm Avumegah⁵, William Dowling⁵, Neil Gibson², Giada Mattiuzzo¹ and Yann Le Duff¹

¹South Mimms Laboratories, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Potters Bar, UK

²Battelle, West Jefferson, Ohio, USA

³Department of Arbovirology, Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases, Uganda Virus Research Institute, Entebbe, Uganda

⁴Integrum Scientific, LLC, Greensboro, USA

⁵Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Initiative (CEPI), Oslo, Norway

Sudan virus (SUDV) causes Sudan virus disease (SVD), a severe illness with a case fatality rate of up to 71%. Compared to the closely related Ebola virus, there is currently no licensed vaccine against SUDV, however multiple candidates have entered clinical trials, and several serological assays have been developed. To increase comparability of results generated by these assays, an International Standard (IS) is required. The IS represents the highest order of reference material for biological substances and established by the WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization (ECBS). Calibration of serological assays against the IS allows reporting of sample potencies in IU/mL therefore facilitating data comparison between laboratories and defining a correlate of protection. To develop the first WHO IS for anti-SUDV antibodies, sera from 28 survivors of the 2000 or 2012 outbreaks of SVD in Uganda were characterised for binding and neutralising activities, in parallel at the MHRA Science Campus and Battelle. The candidate IS was prepared by pooling 14 individual sera with the highest antibody binding and neutralising activities, formulated and lyophilised to increase stability. To assess the suitability of the candidate IS for anti-SUDV antibodies in serological assays, a multi-centre collaborative study was launched. Harmonisation in the quantification of the binding and neutralising activities of the study samples was achieved when potencies were expressed relative to the candidate IS. Similar harmonisation was observed when sample potencies were reported relative to a sample composed of anti-SUDV GP monoclonal antibodies spiked in negative human serum, suggesting this type of material could be used as a primary calibrant. The data will be presented to the WHO ECBS for establishment in October 2025, adding to the portfolio of WHO International Standards supporting filovirus serology.

Producing reference materials to support emerging virus outbreak preparedness

Emma Bentley¹, Michael Selorm Avumegah², Valentina Bernasconi², Marian Killip³, Yann Le Duff¹ and Giada Mattiuzzo¹

¹Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), South Mimms, UK

²Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Oslo, UK

³UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), Porton Down, UK

Over the past decade, the succession of 7 WHO public health emergencies of international concern (PHEIC) has highlighted the need for R&D investment to develop effective countermeasures to respond to new outbreaks, including vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. To support this, a list of priority pathogens was identified by the WHO R&D Blueprint and recently updated to follow the prototype pathogen approach for each priority family. In partnership with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), we have developed WHO International Standards (IS) for antibody against these prioritised viruses. Their use facilitates the comparison of serological results from laboratories worldwide undertaking treatment/vaccine development and clinical trials. The process to develop a WHO IS follows established guidelines and may take several years. The main challenges are the high containment level required for handling many of the prioritised pathogens and sourcing of candidate material to serve as IS; this is ideally plasma/serum from convalescent patients, which may be difficult to source due to the infrequency/severity of human infections and needs to be safe to distribute to laboratories worldwide. Working with CEPI, we have established a workflow to expedite the preparation of WHO IS for antibodies against emerging viruses. This includes establishing a network of collaborators to collect candidate material, procedures to maximise the safety of the samples and serological assays which can rapidly be set-up for the virus of interest. Further, rapid access to a reference material (working standard) at the beginning of an outbreak, prior to establishment as a WHO IS, was achieved for SARS-CoV-2 and Mpox PHEIC and supports early countermeasure development. These reagents can be generated within 2 months and can be retrospectively back-calibrated to the WHO IS. To date, we have prepared 8 WHO IS for antibody following this model and have 4 projects in progress.

Milk Pasteurization Efficiently Inactivates H5 Influenza Virus Pseudotypes

Alessia Campese^1,2,*, Kelly A. S. da Costa^1,*, Maria Giovanna Marotta³, Tobias Mapulanga¹, Alessandra Ruggiero² and Nigel J. Temperton¹

¹Viral Pseudotype Unit (VPU, Medway School of Pharmacy, University of Kent and University of Greenwich, Chatham, UK

²Department of Neuroscience, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

³Department of Life Science, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

*co-contributing

The first bovine infection of Influenza A (IAV) H5 clade 2.3.4.4b in the USA was reported in March 2024. Since then, the H5 influenza virus has spread between farms and infected farm cats and humans through the consumption of infected raw milk or exposure to it during the milking process. At this point, it became clear that the pasteurisation process may be critical to limit spread of the virus to humans. Research has shown that influenza viruses can be inactivated following pasteurisation. Work with IAV H5 has to be carried out at BSL 3/ Specified Animal Pathogen Order (SAPO) containment level 4, which is not accessible for all laboratories. To further safe research, we propose the use of pseudotyped viruses (PVs) to model H5 inactivation in milk. PVs can be worked with at lower containment levels and can be modified quickly to incorporate mutations or different strains of influenza. We pseudotyped representative HA from strains of H5 including clade 2.3.4.4b isolated from a dairy cow in the USA. We have then shown that our titration method could be adapted to include the use of milk before and after the pasteurisation process. Our data indicate that the heat inactivation of milk spiked with pseudotyped IAV H5 virus is decreases viral titre in milk of 4 orders of magnitude. Moreover, our results show that different fat content does not significantly impact viral inactivation during heat treatment, and that after 7 days of refrigeration viral tires naturally decrease but are not eliminated. Furthermore, our model shows similar results to the ones seen in other studies conducted on live virus, thus suggesting that pseudotyped virus can be used to model virial viability following inactivation treatment and storage outside of the host.

CIDR: Centre for Infectious Disease Reagents – Expanding the portfolio of research reagents to support epidemic and pandemic preparedness for emerging viruses

Robert F Cunliffe, Iliana Georgana, Nassim Alami-Rahmouni, Diane Cook, Giada Mattiuzzo, Philip J. Hogarth, Yann Le Duff

Vaccines Division, Research & Development, Science Research and Innovation, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), South Mimms, UK

A key component of effective pandemic preparedness is the cost-effective and timely access to high quality research reagents. This accelerates the development of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics against emerging infectious diseases, particularly for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which are frequently the most affected. To meet this need, the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has recently launched a new reagent portfolio, the Centre for Infectious Disease Reagents (CIDR). CIDR builds upon the Centre for AIDS Reagents (CFAR), a repository in operation since 1989 that has supplied more than 8500 vials in the past 10 years. CIDR will increase global preparedness and assure an ongoing legacy resource. Our group has extensive expertise in producing a variety of reagents. Using our successful operating model and expanding network, we are actively engaging with the scientific community to anticipate reagents need and encouraging leading scientists to deposit materials to our repository. In addition, we are producing and characterising new reagents e.g. recombinant proteins, pseudotyped viruses, cell lines and antibodies, as well as commissioning new reagents. The scope of CIDR is guided by priority pathogen lists from UK Vaccine Network, WHO, and CEPI, and focuses on Lassa fever, Nipah, Marburg and Ebola diseases, MERS, Chikungunya, and others. Materials are made available to institutions worldwide and prioritized to LMICs which benefit from free of charge access. CIDR protects intellectual property rights through material transfer agreements with third party rights. Scientists who would like to share reagents with the wider research community are invited to contact CIDR at CFAR@nibsc.org.

Optimised Production and Stability of a Lyophilised H1–18 Influenza A Virus Pseudotyped Virus Panel for Global Serological Research

Tobias Mapulanga¹, Shahid Rowles-Khalid², Kelly A S da Costa¹, Mayora Neto M¹, Del Rosario JMM¹, Simon D Scott¹ and Nigel Temperton¹

¹Viral Pseudotype Unit, Medway School of Pharmacy, Universities of Greenwich and Kent, Chatham, Kent, UK

²University College London and Imperial College London, 86-96 Chenies Mews, London, WC1E 6HX

We describe the development and optimisation of the first complete lyophilised H1–18 Influenza A virus (IAV) pseudotyped virus (PV) panel, enabling comprehensive, subtype-wide serological analysis. PVs were produced via transient transfection of HEK 293T/17 cells, with optimised conditions significantly increasing yields for H1–16 subtypes prior to scale-up. Post-production, PVs were purified by 0.45 µm acetyl acetate filtration and subsequently stored either at −80 °C or freeze-dried at −50 °C for long-term stability at 2–8 °C. Titration confirmed robust production across the panel. We are currently validating assay performance, focusing on specificity, range, and precision metrics (repeatability, reproducibility, and intermediate precision). We invite laboratory partners to join a planned multicentre collaborative study to accelerate the deployment of this panel in IAV serological research.

Identifying factors that affect the tropism of respiratory viruses to ciliated cells

Deimante Ramonaite¹, Nigel Temperton², Efstathios Giotis¹

¹School of Life Sciences, University of Essex, CO4 3SQ

²Viral Pseudotype Unit, Medway School of Pharmacy, University of Kent and University of Greenwich, Chatham, UK

The respiratory tract is a primary entry site for many viral pathogens and plays a central role in shaping host–virus interactions. Among the various airway cell types, ciliated epithelial cells, responsible for clearing mucus and inhaled particles, are frequently targeted by respiratory viruses such as influenza viruses and coronaviruses. This is largely due to their expression of surface entry factors like ACE2 and TMPRSS2. However, expression of these and other host factors varies across individuals and airway cell types, contributing to differential susceptibility to infection. A major challenge in the field is identifying host factors that may drive or restrict viral entry in a cell-type-specific manner, particularly within ciliated epithelial cells. To address this, we analysed 26 single-cell RNA sequencing datasets from 12 studies focused on primary human airway epithelial cells. Differences between ciliated and non-ciliated populations were examined to identify host factors with consistent expression patterns, predicted membrane localisation, and relevance to viral pathogenesis. Through this approach, three candidate entry-associated host factors (CDHR3, CIB1, and EZR) were prioritised. We evaluated their expression and subcellular localisation and assessed their potential to influence the entry of pseudotyped respiratory viruses, including HCoV-HKU1, SARS-CoV-2 variants, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-1, HCoV-NL63, and influenza A virus. This ongoing study contributes to a deeper understanding of how epithelial diversity and host gene expression shape viral tropism. By identifying potential host determinants of susceptibility, these findings may inform future research into viral pathogenesis, therapeutic targets, and the development of more refined airway infection models.

In vitro assessment of antigen-specific GC B cell responses via tonsil organoid engineering

Chloe Rees-Spear¹, Amanda Duhlin¹, Olivia Payne¹, Persephone Jenkins², Diana Matei², Marlon de Gast³, Marit van Gils³, Elizabeth Rosser², Laura McCoy¹

¹University College London, Division of Infection and Immunity, London, UK

²University College London, Aging, Rheumatology and Regenerative Medicine, London, UK

³Amsterdam University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The recent development of in vitro GC organoids from tonsil tissue opens a range of possibilities for investigation of human GC responses without the use of animal models. Here, we employ this GC organoid system combined with CRISPR-Cas9 engineering to investigate a range of antigen-specific responses. First, we tested the responsiveness of this system to stimulation by live-attenuated influenza compared to SARS-CoV-2 ChAdOx vaccines. We then tested whether these results could be replicated using a SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus. Finally, we used AAV-mediated CRISPR-Cas9 engineering to express an HIV-specific antibody in tonsil B cells and assessed GC formation following HIV-antigen stimulation. We found that LAIV and ChadOX vaccines could both stimulate GC formation and in vitro antigen-specific antibody production, and that these results could be weakly induced by stimulation with Omicron SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus. However, we found high inter-donor variability in response to stimulation. We further demonstrated that CRISPR-engineered HIV-specific B cells can be detected within this system, and that these cells respond to HIV antigen stimulation. We conclude that this tonsil GC organoid system can be used to investigate antigen-specific GC responses and can be combined with CRISPR engineering to enable investigation of a wide range of antigen-specific responses, but that significant optimisation is required for true reproducibility.