Erica Ollmann Saphire

Erica obtained her bachelor’s degree from Rice University, Houston Texas followed by Ph.D. studies at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California. After postdoctoral work at Scripps, Erica joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2003, and later as full Professor in 2012. In 2019, she joined La Jolla Institute for Immunology, where she is currently President and CEO. Erica directs the NIAID-supported Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Immunotherapeutic Consortium, and leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-supported CoVIC consortium, to evaluate antibody therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 to prevent and treat COVID-19. Erica’s research, outreach and leadership has been recognized by many awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering, young investigator awards from the International Congress of Antiviral Research, the American Society for Microbiology, and the MRC Centre for Virus Research in the UK. She was awarded a Fulbright Global Scholar fellowship from the United States Department of State and a Mercator Fellowship from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, to foster international collaborations using cryoEM to further global health. More recently, Erica was recipient of The Scientist of the Year award from The Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation, and in 2023 received the Pantheon Award for Academia, Non-Profit, & Research.

Within the bunyavirus field, Erica’s group has made many seminal discoveries, including crystal and cryo-EM structures of the arenavirus nucleocapsid protein and glycoprotein spikes, revealing insight into their structure-function relationships. More recently, Erica’s group have identified essential host cell factors for arenavirus entry and RNA synthesis, as well as providing a mechanistic understanding of antibody-mediated neutralization, information that is critical for the design of future arenavirus vaccines and therapeutics.

Allison Groseth

Allison was educated in Canada where she obtained her BSc from the University of Victoria, followed by her PhD at the University of Manitoba. After post-doctoral fellowships at the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Philipps-Universität Marburg, Allison was appointed as a staff scientist at the National Institute of Health (NIH), in Montana. Since 2015 she has been a group leader at the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut in Germany. Allison’s research focusses on the identification of host cell factors that both support and suppress arenavirus infection, and understanding how these different interactions influence arenavirus pathogenicity.

Helene Malet

Helene obtained her PhD under the supervision of Bruno Canard at the Laboratoire Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques (AFMB), Marseille, for which she used X-ray crystallography to characterize the Dengue virus polymerase structure. Subsequently, Helene undertook post-doctoral training in electron microscopy in the laboratory of Helen Saibil at Birkbeck College, London, and then joined the group of Stephen Cusack at EMBL Grenoble, working on the structural analysis of the orthobunyavirus polymerase. Recently, Helene was recruited as an UGA Associate Professor at The Institut de Biologie structurale (IBS), Grenoble, in the team of Guy Schoehn within the Electron Microscopy and Methods group. Her research project focuses on the structural and functional analysis of bunyavirus replication, a viral order consisting of many highly pathogenic human viruses against which no drugs or vaccines are available.

Clive McKimmie

Clive obtained his BSc degree from the University of Nottingham in (Molecular Cell Biology) and PhD at the University of Edinburgh (Neuroimmunology, 2005). He then moved to the University of Glasgow, working in the laboratory of Professor Gerry Graham, defining mechanisms by which chemokines control the positioning of leukocytes in inflamed tissues. In 2012, Clive was awarded a fellowship allowing him to fuse expertise and resources from virology and immunology to uncover fundamental new insights into an increasingly important group of infectious diseases caused by mosquito-borne viruses. In 2016, Clive relocated to the University of Leeds to consolidate his independence as a principal investigator with a current focus on the coordination of the skin innate immune response to virus infection, how these are influenced by mosquito-derived factors and the relevance of skin-based events on the later systemic course of infection.

Danny Asogun

Danny Asogun is a public health physician with interests in the epidemiology of Highly infectious disease. He is a Professor of community and social medicine at Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria, and a consultant Public Health Physician at The Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH), Nigeria. He is the Pioneer director of The Institute of Lassa fever Research and ControI at ISTH, as well as a member of the WHO Lassa virus Research and development roadmap task force.

Danny Wright

After studying Biology at Exeter University, Danny pursued an MSc in Medical Parasitology at LSHTM. In 2013, he joined the Jenner Institute, progressing Malaria, Ebola and TB candidate vaccines through clinical trials. He later began his DPhil in Clinical Medicine, splitting his time between Oxford and Kilifi, Kenya, under Professor George Warimwe focusing on the design and development of a One-Health, multi-species Rift Valley fever vaccine. Presently, as part of Professor Teresa Lambe’s team at the Oxford Vaccine Group, he leads a vaccine program for Rift Valley fever. He also works on the design and development of vaccines for other outbreak pathogens, including New World arenaviruses, utilizing both viral-vectored and mRNA platforms. He currently serves as a member on CEPI's Rift Valley fever vaccine taskforce