IMRP speakers

Join us as we bring together leading experts, researchers, and industry pioneers from around the world for the 8th ISIRV-AVG Meeting & 3rd IMRP 2025. This year’s distinguished lineup features some of the most influential voices in the field of respiratory virus research, antiviral strategies, and pandemic preparedness.

The below speakers will be partaking in the 3rd IMRP Meeting.

IMRP Speakers

John Arputhan Abisheganaden

Professor John Abisheganaden is Chief and Senior Consultant at Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR), National Healthcare Group (NHG). He holds a Fellowship from the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh UK; a MMED (Internal Medicine) from NUS Singapore, as well as a FAMS (Respiratory Med) from the Academy of Medicine Singapore. He is also a Senior Consultant Respiratory & Critical Care Physician at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He leads the HSOR team in population decision analytics and operations research, implementation and outcomes evaluation, as well as health system performance and sustainability. He is also chair of the NHG Respiratory Health Steering Committee, and also a lead clinician for NHG’s Value-Based Care work.

Professor Ian Barr

Professor Ian Barr is currently the Deputy Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza which was designated in 1992 (one of 5 globally). The Centre plays a key role in the national and regional surveillance of human and zoonotic influenza viruses as well as having an active research program. Ian has over 35 years’ experience with academic and commercial organisations, including over 25 years at the Centre. He has authored or co-authored over 300 scientific publications including more than 250 peer reviewed journal articles, reviews and editorials on various aspects of influenza and RSV.

Tristan Clark

Tristan Clark is a Professor and Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the University of Southampton and University Hospitals Southampton NHS trust. His research involves the assessment of diagnostic accuracy, usability, and clinical impact of novel rapid diagnostic tests for infections. He has been awarded grant funding from NIHR, Research Councils, EU, and Industry and has published results of his trials in The New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet series journals. During the COVID-19 pandemic he has acted as an advisor to the UK Department of Health and Social Care. The aim of his research is to improve patient care and experience through the evidence-based use of rapid diagnostic tests for infection.

Benjamin Cowling

Prof Cowling is currently a Professor in the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control at the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong, and a member of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard School of Public Health. He is a consultant for the World Health Organisation and serves on the editorial boards of Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, PLoS ONE and PLoS Currents: Outbreaks. In 2015 he was awarded a Croucher Senior Research Fellowship for his work on influenza virus epidemiology. Prof Cowling conducts research into the epidemiology of influenza and other respiratory viruses. His research team has characterized how easily seasonal and pandemic influenza viruses can spread in households, and the measures which can reduce transmission such as face masks and improved hand hygiene. His recent research has focused on the effectiveness of influenza vaccines and the complex transmission dynamics of respiratory viruses. He has authored more than 270 peer-reviewed publications.

Stephanie Goya

Dr. Stephanie Goya is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington, where she leads genomic studies on respiratory viruses including RSV, metapneumovirus, rhinoviruses, and seasonal coronaviruses. With a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires, her expertise spans viral genomics, molecular diagnostics, and public health surveillance. Dr. Goya has contributed to global efforts in genomic data standardization as a Data Scientist for GISAID and served as an external expert for the WHO on RSV surveillance. She also leads the International RSV Genotyping Consortium and is actively involved in teaching and mentoring in the fields of bioinformatics and molecular virology.

Paul Heath

Paul Heath is a Professor in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at City St George's, University of London, where he is the Director of the Vaccine Institute. His training in paediatrics and infectious diseases was at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia; the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford; and St George’s Hospital, London. His research interests are in the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases, in clinical vaccine trials, particularly in at-risk groups and in perinatal infections. He coordinates a European neonatal infection surveillance network (neonIN) and the UK Paediatric Vaccine Group (UKPVG), is a member of the JCVI, chairs the NIHR Vaccine Innovation Pathway: Vaccine Research in Pregnant Participants Working Group, is co-Chair of the UK Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Forum and is a member of the WHO GBS Working Group.

Shamez Ladhani

Prof Shamez Ladhani PhD MRCPCH(UK) MSc(distinction) MBBS(hons) BSc(hons) is a paediatric infectious diseases consultant at St. George's Hospital, professor of paediatric infectious diseases and vaccinology at St. George's University of London and consultant epidemiologist at UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), where he is the clinical lead for a number of national vaccine preventable infections, including Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Neisseria meningitidis, which are all major causes of childhood bacterial meningitis. He completed his medical training at Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals, London, and then worked in a children's hospital in rural Kenya. Upon returning to London, he obtained his PhD in genetic epidemiology and vaccine failure in children and completed his specialist paediatric infectious diseases training at St. George's and Great Ormond Street Hospitals, London. In the current pandemic, he is the clinical lead for of SARS-CoV-2 in Children at UKHSA. His work has focused on national surveillance of SARS-CoV-2, PIMS-TS and long COVID, immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 in children compared to adults as well as infection, transmission and outbreaks in educational settings and COVID-19 vaccines for children. He has published extensively in the field of paediatric infectious diseases and vaccine-preventable infections.

Adam Lauring

Dr. Adam Lauring is a Professor and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. He received his MD and PhD from the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Lauring pursued his post-graduate clinical and research training at the University of California, San Francisco, where he completed a medical residency, an Infectious Diseases fellowship, and a postdoctoral fellowship in virology. He has been on the faculty at the University of Michigan since 2012.Dr. Lauring studies the fundamentals of how viruses mutate and how this drives the evolution of poliovirus, influenza virus, RSV, and SARS-CoV-2. His more recent work utilizes advanced sequencing of influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2 samples to understand viral spread in households, healthcare settings, and across communities. He also participates in studies of influenza and COVID vaccine effectiveness. Dr. Lauring is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He serves as Deputy Editor at the Journal of Infectious Diseases. His research on virus evolution and genomic epidemiology has been funded by grants from the NIH, CDC, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Vernon Lee

Prof Vernon Lee, a preventive medicine physician, has a distinguished record in globalhealth, focusing on pandemic preparedness, infectious disease epidemiology, andhealth policy. His pivotal role in Singapore's COVID-19 strategy and his response to theSARS, influenza, and Zika outbreaks highlight his contributions.Prof Lee's previous positions as Advisor to the WHO's Assistant Director-General,Medical Epidemiologist in WHO Country OƯice in Indonesia, and Head of the SingaporeArmed Forces' Biodefence Centre, demonstrate his global health security expertise. Hecontinues to serve on expert committees at the international level.A proponent of evidence-based health policy, Prof Lee has authored around 200scientific papers featured in NEJM, JAMA, and Lancet. He maintains an adjunctprofessorship at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health in Singapore.His academic achievements include an MBBS from the National University ofSingapore, a PhD in epidemiology from the Australian National University, and MPH andMBA degrees from Johns Hopkins University.

Wei Shen Lim

Professor Wei Shen Lim is consultant respiratory physician at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and Honorary Professor of Medicine, University of Nottingham. He is chair of the Acute Respiratory Infections national research strategy group, NIHR Respiratory Translational Research Collaboration. He developed the CURB65 severity scoring tool for community acquired pneumonia and co-led the evaluation of Dexamethasone for COVID-19 in the RECOVERY Trial. He is chair of COVID-19 Immunisation, Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). In 2023, he led the set-up of a national Hospital-based Acute Respiratory Infection Surveillance System (HARISS) in England.

Direk Limmathurotsakul

Dr.Limmathurotsakul is a distinguished researcher and physician specializing in melioidosis (an infection caused by the Gram-negative bacillus Burkholderia pseudomallei), sepsis and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). He serves as the Head of Microbiology at the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), a Professor of Epidemiology at Mahidol University, Thailand and a Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, UK. Dr. Limmathurotsakul is regarded as a global leader in melioidosis with his extensive publications on epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Using modelling and statistical approaches, he estimated that B. pseudomallei causes an infection in about 165,000 people per year worldwide, and 89,000 (54%) of those people die. He estimated that melioidosis is severely underreported in the 45 countries in which it is known to be endemic and probably endemic in a further 34 countries that have never reported the disease. He has been raising the importance of melioidosis globally, highlighting its systematic misdiagnosis in many tropical low- and middle-income countries, and providing guidance on improving its surveillance, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention worldwide.In 2015, he established and chaired the International Melioidosis Network (IMN) from 2015 to 2024. The IMN allows researchers, healthcare providers, and stakeholders to communicate, share working guidelines and laboratory protocols (www.melioidosis.info) and request support from other members worldwide http://groups.google.com/group/melioidosis

Javier Martin

Javier is a Principal Scientist at MHRA South Mimms where he leads the Polio Laboratory Group. He completed his Ph.D. studies at the Universidad Autonoma, Madrid, Spain, successfully developing a novel technique to generate genetically modified synthetic influenza viruses used to develop prospective synthetic vaccines. Javier then spent four years as a postdoctoral scientist at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London UK, where he continued his work on influenza virus. He moved to the NIBSC, now MHRA, in 1998 where he is the Head of the WHO Polio Global Specialized Laboratory supporting the WHO Global Polio Eradication Initiative both on disease surveillance and vaccine control, standardization and development.

Sebastian Maurer-Stroh

Sebastian Maurer-Stroh studied theoretical biochemistry at the University of Vienna and wrote his master and PhD thesis at the Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP). After FEBS and Marie Curie fellowships at the VIB-SWITCH lab in Brussels, he has been leading the sequence analytics portfolio in the A*STAR Bioinformatics Institute (BII) since 2007 and Infectious Disease Programme since 2010. He is the Executive Director of BII since January 2021. His computational team is well known for successes at the public-private interface in Singapore from Precision Medicine to Consumer Product and Food Safety and of course for his critical contributions to national and global viral pathogen surveillance through the GISAID data science initiative that has become the single most important source for virus outbreak data sharing and analysis in this pandemic powering public health responses globally. He was awarded the 2017 A*STAR STAR Award, 2017 PS(Health) Award – Excellence (Team), 2018 Ministry of Health collaborator long-service award, 2022 Public Administration Medal (Silver) under the National Awards (COVID-19) and 2024 Public Sector Transformation Award – Exemplary Leader Award.

Hanna Nohynek

Hanna Nohynek is Professor MD PhD, with special competences in vaccinology, international and travel health (FMA); Chief Physician Unit Prevention of Health Threats of Department of Public Health in Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), a governmental research agency. She was secretary, Finnish NITAG until 8/2023, still member. Chairperson of WHO SAGE since 1/2023, former chairperson of SAGE working group covid-19 vaccines (4/2020-12/2022). After PhD on diagnostic methods development, she coordinated Phase II trials & Phase III 11PCV against childhood pneumonia in the Philippines. In 2010, she joined THL to work in vaccine programme design, evidence-based policy/decision making, vaccine impact and safety, acceptance, SARS-CoV-2, RSV, influenza and avian influenza, pertussis and pneumococcus. Presently she is Principal investigator of 3 immunogenicity and safety studies: repeated influenza vaccinations among HCWs, covid-19 vaccinations and avian influenza vaccinations. She has published over 200 scientific peer reviewed publications. She co-led RSV product assessment (www.imi-promise.eu) and brand-specific influenza vaccine effectiveness projects (www.drive-eu.org). She teaches (incl ADVAC) and mentors, is in board of international organizations (icddr.b, member and IVI Emeritus Trustee), and board member and 2^nd vice chair of the Wellbeing Service County of Päijät-Häme (since 6/2025). A book was published of her life and work https://kirja.fi/collections/terhi-hautamaki/products/hanna-nohynek-peloton-9789510498811 .

Peter Openshaw

Peter Openshaw is Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College London, UK. A respiratory physician and mucosal immunologist, his research focuses on how the immune response both protects against viral infection but also causes disease.

He has published widely on vaccinology, the immunopathogenesis of pulmonary viral diseases and lung inflammation, especially in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza and COVID-19 infection. He works on human challenge in volunteers (Google Scholar and https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7220-2555).

He is a Board Member of the Science Media Centre and Director of the HIC-Vac consortium (https://www.hic-vac.org/). He was the first clinical President of the British Society for Immunology (2013-18) and received prizes for his lifetime contribution to RSV research (Chanock Award, 2012), the European Federation of Immunological Societies Award (2014) and the Per Brandtzaeg Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award in mucosal immunology (2024).

He advised the UK government on pandemics (SAGE, 2009-12; Chair/Vice-Chair of NERVTAG, 2015-2022). He was made a Commander of the British Empire for services to Medicine and Immunology in the 2022 UK New Year’s Honours and received the 2024 Imperial College Medal for his work as a Consul, reforming the university’s Ethos, Values and Behaviours.

Nicholas Paton

Nicholas Paton is a professor of infectious diseases at the National University of Singapore and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His research interests are optimisation of HIV and tuberculosis treatment in resource-limited settings. He runs a programme of TB treatment trials coordinated from Singapore, including the TRUNCATE-TB trial- a strategy trial of 2 months’ treatment for drug-susceptible TB conducted in 18 sites in Asia and Africa.

Paul Ananth Tambyah

Paul Ananth Tambyah is currently Professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore and also Senior Consultant Infectious Diseases Physician at the National University Health System. After completing medical school at the National University of Singapore and infectious diseases training at the University of Wisconsin, he returned to Singapore 25 years ago and has served in a number of national and international committees including as founding head of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the National University of Singapore. He is also immediate past President of both the International Society for Infectious Diseases and the Asia Pacific Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infection. He is a visiting consultant to the National Center for Infectious Diseases, Singapore and the Singapore Armed Forces. His main research interests are emerging infections including influenza clinical trials and device associated infections.

Emma Thomson

Emma Thomson is the Director of the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research. She is Clinical Professor of Infectious Diseases, specialising in viral evolution and detection of emerging viral infections. She also holds a position as Professor of Emerging Viruses at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Her research group develop and use next-generation sequencing (NGS) methods to detect new and emerging viruses in the UK and in East Africa (Uganda) and engage in improving local diagnostic capacity to allow for more rapid control interventions. Her group also work on linking the genotype of viruses with the phenotype in the laboratory and in clinical settings. She works as a consultant in infectious diseases and general (internal) medicine NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHS GG&C) and a PI for several vaccine studies.

Judith Wong

Dr Judith Wong has a background spanning clinical diagnostics and surveillance of viral diseases, quality assurance and multi-disciplinary research with focus on microbiology. In her recent role at the Environmental Health Institute, National Environment Agency, Singapore, she led a multidisciplinary scientific team working on various One Health initiatives including risk assessment and surveillance of vector-borne diseases, biosurveillance, and environmental monitoring of antimicrobial resistance. Judith helped to set-up Singapore’s Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Programme, which expanded from a research initiative to a national surveillance system spanning across more than 500 locations countrywide.

Judith received her PhD in Biological Sciences from the National University of Singapore and was an ASEAN-Australian One Health Fellow with Murdoch University, Australia. She also serves as a Deputy Co-Lead for Environmental Transmission and Mitigation with the Programme for Research in Epidemic Preparedness and Response (PREPARE), Communicable Diseases Agency, Singapore.

Sook San Wong

Dr. Wong obtained her PhD in molecular virology, working on dengue virus, from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She subsequently completed her postdoctoral training at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, which was also the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center on the study of the ecology of influenza in lower animals. Prior to joining HKU, Dr. Wong was a PI at Guangzhou Medical University, China, where she was involved in some of the early outbreak response during early 2020. In the space of pandemic preparedness, she has been involved in risk assessments of avian influenza viruses, including H7N9 and studying the immunological correlates of protection against them. Her current laboratory’s research interest is focused on understanding the immunological and virological determinants of robust antibody responses at a population as well as at the individual level. This includes a focus on population immunity to avian influenza viruses, which will help in quantifying infection risks as well as in identifying strategies that can help mitigate the impact of avian influenza virus infections.

Mo Yin

Dr Mo Yin is the Deputy director of ADVANCE-ID clinical trial network, and an Infectious Diseases physician at the National University Hospital in Singapore. She is the lead investigator for the REGARD-VAP trial (Reducing Antibiotic Treatment Duration for Ventilator Associated Pneumonia) and the ACORN-HAI study (A Clinically-Oriented Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network for Healthcare Associated Infections). She has designed and conducted large multinational clinical trials which focus on pragmatic solutions for antibiotic resistant bacterial infections. She is driven by the ideal of using quality clinical research to improve patient outcomes and propel global policies. She has received numerous awards for her achievements in clinical care, research and teaching. Dr Mo Yin obtained her MBBS from the National University of Singapore and DPhil from University of Oxford.

Maria Zambon

Professor Maria Zambon is the current Head of Respiratory Viruses and Director of the National Influenza Centre at UKHSA’s National Reference Laboratory in Colindale, London.

With 40 years of experience as a medically qualified influenza virologist, of which three decades have been at the UK public health agency, UKHSA, and its predecessor organisations, she has played a crucial role in the surveillance and response to seasonal influenza as well as new and emerging respiratory viruses over this time.