A new paradigm for arbovirus emergence: How transposons modulate mosquito vector competence
Start date
15 March 2019End date
14 March 2020Funder
Team
Principal investigator
Dr Kevin Maringer
Lecturer in Microbiology
Biography
My research group is working to improve our understanding how the molecular interactions of dengue virus and other flaviviruses with their mosquito vectors contribute to the transmission and global emergence of these viruses. I am passionate about using science to improve health and wellbeing in the real world. I sit on the Microbiology Society policy committee, and have organised training workshops in Indonesia. I am a founding member of the University of Surrey Neglected Tropical Diseases Hub (@NTDhub), an interdisciplinary network bringing together biomedical and social scientists with engineers to solve the biggest challenges in neglected tropical diseases globally. I am also a co-organiser of the Recently Independent Virology Researchers network in the UK. I have developed teaching material for underprivileged youths in New York City, and contributed to programme development at the BBC. My research has been funded by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council, and the Global Challenges Research Fund.
Previously, I studied herpesvirus assembly for my PhD thesis in the lab of Professor Gill Elliott at Imperial College London (London, UK), after graduating with degree in Medical Microbiology and Virology from the University of Warwick (Coventry, UK). I was then funded by the Wellcome Trust to study the molecular interactions between dengue virus and its human host and mosquito vector on a postdoctoral fellowship split between the labs of Professor Ana Fernandez-Sesma (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA) and Dr. Andrew Davidson (University of Bristol, UK).