ProfessorIlaria Dorigatti

My analyses of the Dengvaxia (CYD-TDV) dengue vaccine clinical trial data uncovered the fundamental role that pre-exposure to dengue before vaccination has on the immunogenicity, efficacy and impact of this vaccine. These results informed the 2016 WHO position paper on dengue vaccines, Most recently, I led the analysis and modelling of the TAK-003 clinical trial data – published in Nature Medicine – which have informed the current WHO guidelines on global dengue vaccine use.

Through the leadership and coordination of the Wellcome-funded xSTAR (multiplex Serology Testing and Analysis Platform) project, I am coordinating a network that is running serological surveys across Africa using a novel multiplex serological assay developed by Institut Pasteur Paris. In this project we are also developing analytical tools to interpret the serological data generated in the project and reconstruct the population-level immunity of the surveyed populations against several arboviruses. We are working with research partners in Benin, Gabon, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Togo, Senegal, Uganda and Madagascar to generate new evidence of arbovirus circulation across hundreds of locations. All laboratory analyses are performed in-country and the project provides training in mathematical modelling to the network to generate quantitative estimates of arbovirus transmission risk, seroprevalence and infection burden at the local and regional scale.

In another research stream, my team is developing climate-dependent transmission models to investigate the effect of climate and climate change on arbovirus transmission. In collaboration with WHO SEARO, the WHO Sri Lanka office and the Ministry of Health of Sri Lanka, we have co-developed spatiotemporal regression and deep learning dengue forecasting tools which are being operationalised to strengthen dengue surveillance and response in the country.

In collaboration with Janssen, we have analysed and modelled pre-clinical in-vitro and in-vivo data from experimental infection studies in mice and non-human primates to characterise the within-host kinetics of dengue virus and the prophylactic inhibitory effect of mosnodenvir (JNJ-1802), a novel dengue antiviral candidate which is currently being tested in human challenge studies.

I am also interested in developing methods and tools to respond to novel emerging infections in real-time and over the years I have contributed to the response to several emerging infections. As part of the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, I contributed to characterising the transmissibility and severity of SARS-CoV-2, with the swab and serological surveys in Vo (Italy) demonstrating the asymptomatic nature and transmission potential of SARS-CoV-2 during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a member of the WHO Ebola Response Team, my analyses contributed to situation awareness and the WHO response to the Ebola virus outbreak affecting West Africa in 2013-2015. I also contributed to the characterisation of Zika virus epidemiology during the Zika epidemic in Latin America, and we have recently conducted an extensive systematic review of Zika’s epidemiology as part of PERG (Pathogen Epidemiology Review Group). During the 2016-2017 Yellow Fever outbreak in Southeast Brazil I developed new methods to assess the risk of international disease introduction, which are now available in the epiflows R package, and which informed travel restriction policies at the US CDC at the time.

ACTIVE GRANTS

2025–2028 Medical Research Foundation Climate Change and Health grant
Co-PI with Dr Sulaiman Ibrahim on project ‘Thermal performance of invasive Aedes: integrating field phenotype data with arbovirus transmission models to enhance disease prediction and control under climate change scenarios’

2024–2026 United Nations Foundation, International Pathogen Surveillance Network grant
Co-I on project led by Prof Nuno Faria on ‘IPSN Fund: Metagenomic surveillance for epidemic prevention in the DRC-Angola cross-border’

2024–2025 Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program Foundation grant
Co-I on project led by Dr Hugo Turner on ‘An economic evaluation of dengue vaccine and Wolbachia-based intervention in Thailand: A dynamic modelling approach'

2024–2027 Wellcome award to develop xSTAR, a multiplex Assay Testing and Analysis Platform for arboviruses in Africa
PI on multi-country project ‘Reconstructing the transmission intensity of arboviruses across Africa and the impact of interventions in a changing climate’

2022–2027 Wellcome award to Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium research programme on climate change and vaccine-preventable diseases
Co-I on project led by Prof Neil Ferguson to include climate in climate sensitive diseases within VIMC’s portfolio. Leading the development of a climate sensitive dengue model

2022–2027 Wellcome Digital Technology Development Award
Co-I on grant led by Prof Thomas Churcher to develop user-friendly and open access ‘Climate Sensitive Vector Borne Disease Intervention Tools’ for malaria and dengue

2019–2025 Janssen Pharmaceutica NV
PI on grant investigating within-host kinetics of dengue virus and the assessing the efficacy of a new antiviral molecule

2019–2025 Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellowship
Fellowship Awardee for project "Spatiotemporal dynamics of arbovirus transmission: implications for disease control"

PAST GRANTS

2022–2023 Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative
PI on grant designing DENV seroprevalence surveys and estimating the force of infection in African countries

2020–2021 UKRI / NERC grant
Co-I on project led by Dr Will Pearse on ‘Improving COVID-19 forecasts by accounting for seasonality and environmental responses’

2015–2018 Imperial College Junior Research Fellowship
Fellowship Awardee for project “Modelling the within-host dynamics of dengue pathogenesis and the human antibody response”