Dr Shannon Quek - 'Identification of novel RNA viruses in nematode hosts of Wolbachia'
4:00pm - 5:00pm /
Tuesday 21st April 2026
Type: Seminar /
Category: Department
/ Series: Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology
Add this event to my calendar
Click on "Create a calendar file" and your browser will download a .ics file for this event.
Microsoft Outlook: Download the file, double-click it to open it in Outlook, then click on "Save & Close" to save it to your calendar. If that doesn't work go into Outlook, click on the File tab, then on Open & Export, then Open Calendar. Select your .ics file then click on "Save & Close".
Google Calendar: download the file, then go into your calendar. On the left where it says "Other calendars" click on the arrow icon and then click on Import calendar. Click on Browse and select the .ics file, then click on Import.
Apple Calendar: The file may open automatically with an option to save it to your calendar. If not, download the file, then you can either drag it to Calendar or import the file by going to File >Import > Import and choosing the .ics file.
The next seminar in the Virology Seminar Series takes place in Meeting Room 1-3, CTID Building at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Dr Shannon Quek is a postdoctoral researcher who came from Indonesia to do his PhD at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, training as a bioinformatician to look at the transcriptomic relationship between Wolbachia endosymbionts and their parasitic nematode hosts. His graduation and first postdoctoral position coincided with the onset of COVID19, and during lockdown he worked with Prof. Grant Hughes to utilise his bioinformatics skills to look at Wolbachia within mosquitoes, and their interactions with virus infections. This raised an interesting question in his mind- could parasitic nematodes also be infected with viruses? Very little work had been done on this previously, and with the world in a virus-induced frenzy, it was a timely opportunity to expand the existing knowledgebase. That initial question resulted in the discovery of nearly 100 novel RNA viruses infecting 28 parasitic nematodes of medical and veterinary importance. Shannon now works in Prof. Mark Taylor’s lab at LSTM, alongside Profs. Christine Goffinet and Alain Kohl, to further understand the role these viruses play in parasitic nematode biology.
Dr Shannon Quek is a postdoctoral researcher who came from Indonesia to do his PhD at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, training as a bioinformatician to look at the transcriptomic relationship between Wolbachia endosymbionts and their parasitic nematode hosts. His graduation and first postdoctoral position coincided with the onset of COVID19, and during lockdown he worked with Prof. Grant Hughes to utilise his bioinformatics skills to look at Wolbachia within mosquitoes, and their interactions with virus infections. This raised an interesting question in his mind- could parasitic nematodes also be infected with viruses? Very little work had been done on this previously, and with the world in a virus-induced frenzy, it was a timely opportunity to expand the existing knowledgebase. That initial question resulted in the discovery of nearly 100 novel RNA viruses infecting 28 parasitic nematodes of medical and veterinary importance. Shannon now works in Prof. Mark Taylor’s lab at LSTM, alongside Profs. Christine Goffinet and Alain Kohl, to further understand the role these viruses play in parasitic nematode biology.