CCDD ID Epi Seminar Series

Talk title: Determinants of SARS-CoV-2 infectiousness and transmission.

Presenter: Ajit Lalvani, Professor and Chair of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London.

Ajit leads the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Respiratory Infections to protect the nation’s health of from the most serious respiratory infections: flu, TB and COVID-19. His patient-based research aims to understand the body’s natural mechanisms of protection against these lethal pathogens and the determinants of transmission. He translates his discoveries into innovative practical solutions to improve patient care and public health. These include: the blueprint for a universal pandemic influenza vaccine, the mechanism of action of BCG vaccine, the first rapid blood test for TB (IGRA), delineating the infectious window of SARS-CoV-2 and its mode of spread in households, and the blueprint for variant-proof COVID vaccines. By devising the first IGRA-based national screening programme for latent TB in new migrants, he has helped to halve England’s TB burden in recent years. He has raised >£40 million research funding and published >200 research papers, cited >12,000 times. Ajit supports the public’s engagement with science through his role as a Governor of The Science Museum Group, London. He has actively developed India’s medical research ecosystem through chairing the Strategic Advisory Board of The India Alliance, India’s pre-eminent medical research funding organization.

About the series: Each spring, CCDD hosts an annual seminar series featuring talks from experts on the latest research in infectious disease epidemiology and modeling. The ID Epi Seminar Series aims to bring in speakers from various disciplines within infectious disease epidemiology, broadly defined to include the population biology of pathogens and other allied topics. Seminars will be held on Thursdays at 1pm ET between February 9th and May 11th with the exception of March 16th (spring break).

This seminar will be hybrid in-person and virtual. The in-person seminar will be located in Kresge G2 at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Registering using this form will grant you access to both in-person seminars as well as remote versions of the seminar. A recording of this seminar will also be made available.

Register for the seminar here.