CVR scientist awarded Philip Leverhulme Prize
Published: 16 November 2020
Dr Daniel Streicker has received a prestigious biological sciences award to integrate data across published biomedical, ecological and virological research studies to answer new and important questions about emerging viruses.
Centre for Virus Research associate Dr Daniel Streicker has received a prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize in Biological Sciences.
The award will support Dr Streicker's efforts to integrate data across published research studies and answer new and important questions about emerging viruses.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest in a series of viruses that have appeared unpredictably in human populations from animal reservoirs.
Meta-analyses, studies that search for patterns across large numbers of individual studies, are a popular approach to find broad patterns that underpin how viruses emerge.
For example, past studies have suggested that certain animals and certain groups of viruses pose the greatest risk to human health; discoveries that define new directions for research and pathogen surveillance.
Funding from the Philip Leverhulme Prize will be used to assemble and analyse new datasets derived from published biomedical, ecological and virological research studies.
These will be used to discover whether the severity of disease that results when a virus enters a new host species depends on the animal from which it originated; how the modern explosion of molecular sequencing can help us understand the diversity of viruses found in wildlife; and how we can best overcome technical biases that sometimes compromise conclusions on how viruses are distributed among host species or geographic regions.
By refining understanding of the distribution and threat posed by viruses, these studies contribute broad scale knowledge to the origins and severity of new disease threats.
Dr Streicker, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Biodiversity Animal Health & Comparative Medicine, said: "It is a great honor to have my research recognised with a Philip Leverhulme Prize.
"The prize will support my efforts to discover broad patterns in the origins and consequences of emerging viruses.
"This has been a productive branch of my research, but until now relied on shoestring budgets and time volunteered by enthusiastic collaborators, postdocs and students.
"I’m thrilled to now have dedicated support which will allow us to do so much more. I’m grateful to Leverhulme for this opportunity and also to the many people and organisations around the world who have supported my work.”
First published: 16 November 2020