Immunopathogensis of dengue; lessons for COVID-19?

Speaker: prof. Neelika Malavige (Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka)

Talk: „Immunopathogensis of dengue; lessons for COVID-19?”

Time: 12 March 2021, 9:00 am

Venue: Online in the "IFB seminars" group of MS Teams. Group password: ypidr3d.

Neelika Malavige is a Professor and Head of the Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine at University of Sri Jayewardenepura, a Director of Centre for Dengue Research and an academic visitor at the MRC Human Immunology Unit, University of Oxford. She is also a member of Executive Committee of the International Society of Infectious Diseases.   

Neelika has obtained medical training and qualifications through University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Royal College of Physicians, UK and European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology. She did her PhD at the University of Oxford, investigating immune responses to Varicella Zoster virus, having received a Commonwealth Scholarship. She is currently both a scientist and a practising clinician with interest in infectious diseases and allergies. Neelika has obtained research funding of around $ 2 mln and with that support she set up and developed the Centre for Dengue Research at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. 

Neelika’s current research interest involve immune responses to Dengue virus and biomarker identification; she is also running clinical trials to reduce vascular leak in severe disease. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Neelika and her team have been also investigating humoral and cellular responses to SARS-CoV2 and sequencing the viral strains.

She has published extensively on Dengue, VZV and now also on COVID-19 in prestigious journals, including Nature Communications, Scientific Reports and PLoS NeglectedTropical Diseases. She has been awarded countless excellence research awards and multiple awards for quality in research supervision. She has been involved in science popularisation, has been proclaimed a “role model” for Women in STEM and has recently won the title of “The most inspiring woman of the year” in Sri Lanka.