DrAnika Singanayagam

Dr Anika Singanayagam is a Consultant Virologist and leads the Respiratory Virus Unit (national reference laboratory) at UK Health Security Agency. She is also a Senior Clinical Research Fellow in the Section of Adult Infectious Disease at Imperial College London. Her research interests are in the virology and transmission biology of respiratory viruses (e.g. influenza, SARS-CoV-2, RSV, rhinoviruses) including the application of strategies to reduce viral transmission (testing, vaccines, antivirals, air-cleaning technologies), using human experimental infection and transmission studies in field settings to study transmission-blocking strategies for respiratory viruses.

Anika graduated in Medicine (BM BCh MA) from Oxford University (2002-2008) and completed integrated clinical/academic training in Infectious Diseases and General Internal medicine (2009-2024). Her PhD research (funded by a national Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellowship) on pandemic influenza viruses was in the laboratory of Prof Wendy Barclay at Imperial College. Using in vitro and animal models, her work demonstrated how influenza virus HA stability is important for human adaptation and airborne transmission. This involved developing a new experimental technique for collecting and characterising infectious viruses from ferret exhaled breath. Her doctoral work also involved investigating virological causes of reduced effectiveness of the nasally-administered live attenuated influenza vaccine given to children, which helped to inform how these vaccine strains are selected and manufactured.
Other previous research with impact on public health policy includes work on SARS-CoV-2 duration of infectiousness that directly informed isolation policy in the UK and other countries worldwide (Singanayagam et al, Eurosurveillance 2020) and research providing some of the first evidence globally of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurring between vaccinated people (Singanayagam et al, Lancet Inf Dis 2021).

Read about the work on capturing viral emissions after human experimental infection as a surrogate for transmisison: The Pathologist | Intentional Infection and Lancet Podcast.