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PRODID:-//University of Liverpool//University Events//EN
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UID:20260607T203808-112038-UniversityOfLiverpool
DTSTAMP:20260607T203808
DTSTART:20260421T160000
DTEND:20260421T170000
LOCATION:CTID Building, Meeting Room 1-3, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
SUMMARY:Dr Shannon Quek  - 'Identification of novel RNA viruses in nematode hosts of Wolbachia'
DESCRIPTION: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.
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