Research Strategy

Tackling the global threat of viruses requires a multidisciplinary, multilevel, multi-partner approach. We are a committed champion of team science, working to remove barriers between basic and clinical sciences, laboratory and computational approaches and human and veterinary virology.  

The breadth and depth of our expertise combined with our specialist facilities provides the foundation for our research.  

 

Aerial image of the CVR on the Garscube campus. Sky shows a bright sunset. Site composed of several different buildings.

Female wearing lab coat and blue gloves, holding genomics lab equipment and showing a male.

Man wearing face mask sat at a lab bench, wearing a lab coat and holding tools.

People wearing air-tight suits in a high containment facility conducting research in fume hoods.

Man wearing face mask sat at a lab bench, wearing a lab coat and holding tools.

Structure and function of virions

  

Man wearing lab coat walking between two lab benches.

Host-cell responses to infection

  

Person wearing full PPE using a large glove box and wearing a ventilator.

Virus cross-species transmission

   

Two white males wearing lab coats and stood in a insectary surrounded by boxes full of mosquitoes.

Arbovirus-vector interactions

   

Female wearing lab coat and blue gloves, holding genomics lab equipment and showing a male.

Integrative viral genomics and bioinformatics (iVGB)

   

Person wearing white lab coat, blue gloves and blue face mask poring coloured liquid into a container. Lab bench is full of conical flasks with coloured liquid in it.

Preparedness Platform

   

Male wearing face mask sat in front of a microscope looking at a screen which shows molecular imaging. In a red lite room.

Structural biology and imaging platform

   

People wearing air-tight suits in a high containment facility conducting research in fume hoods.

Containment Level (CL) 3 laboratories and CL2/3 insectaries

   

Person wearing lab coat and purple gloves inserting a tray into a machine in a laboratory.

COVID-19 Drug-Screening and Resistance Hub (CRUSH)

   

Multidisciplinary 

We bring together researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds to work together to tackle viral threats. This diverse mix of expertise spans computational biology, molecular virology, structural biology, clinical and veterinary virology, ecology, epidemiology, evolution and vector biology.

For example, virologists investigating the atomic structure of virus particles work alongside ecologists exploring how rabies is transmitted by bats in South America, vector biologists introducing innovative mosquito control measures in Malaysia and bioinformaticians tracking the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants. This blending of multidisciplinary approaches around a shared interest in viruses, enables Centre researchers to address the most pressing questions from multiple perspectives.

Multilevel 

We apply an innovative multidisciplinary ‘molecules to populations’ approach to the study of viruses and the diseases they cause. This means we have unrivalled capacity and capability to undertake research studies spanning the molecular, cellular, host and population levels.

Our research activities are supported by access to a state-of-the-art combination of facilities, technologies, infrastructure and dedicated expertise. This technological capacity and capability underpins our molecules to populations approach.

This means we are able to support studies ranging from functionally characterising known and novel viruses using molecular virology approaches, handling insect vectors and infectious samples at high containment, next generation sequencing and computational biology analyses of viral genomes, through to testing of antiviral therapeutics, and supporting clinical trials.

Multi-partner 

We believe we can achieve more by working together. Our highly productive national and international partnerships span academia, pharma, public health bodies and health delivery services.

We are also committed to extending equitable global partnerships and strengthening capacity in low and middle income countries with long-term research projects designed to tackle some of the most significant viral threats to health.