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From April 2020, an existing successful Health Protection Research Unit will be bolstered by the addition of collaborators from the University of Oxford. Funded by NHIR, the next phase of the HPRU in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections will build on the work already done by the University of Liverpool, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and Public Health England.

Microscopic image of viruses © David Gregory & Debbie Marshall. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Several University of Oxford staff will collaborate as part of the unit, which has Professor Peter Horby as co-director. Professor Christl Donnelly (Statistics) will lead the theme on ‘Epidemiology and Risk Analysis’, and Professor Peter Simmonds (Experimental Medicine), is co-lead on the theme of ‘Pathogen and Vector Biology’.

‘Diagnostics and Host Response’ and ‘Patient Research for Public Health’ complete the set of major research themes which will be used to examine crucial questions related to High Consequence Infectious Diseases, and there will be a particular focus on zoonotic infections (those transmitted from animals to humans).  Emphasis on patient and public involvement will help to determine the most important research questions, and a programme of graduate studentships will support the training of the next generation of EZI researchers.