MissLucy Thorne
Assistant Professor in Molecular Virology
Department of Infectious Disease - Faculty of Medicine
Orcid identifier0000-0001-7358-6047 (opens in a new tab)
- Assistant Professor in Molecular VirologyDepartment of Infectious Disease - Faculty of Medicine
- 315, Norfolk Place, St Mary's Campus, United Kingdom
RESEARCH
RESEARCH INTERESTS
The rate of virus emergence is accelerating with ongoing climate and environmental changes and globalisation, which is something as a lab we are really interested in and keen to collaborate on. In the last 20 years, either a new virus has emerged or a virus has re-emerged in a new population nearly every year. Understanding which ones have the most potential for onwards transmission in humans, and therefore most pandemic potential, is a key challenge in assessing risk and preparing for future pandemics. There are many factors in this, but our focus is on central role of the innate immune system, as our frontline defence against all viruses, but an especially important defence against new viruses, when there is no pre-existing adaptive immunity in the population. This serves as a broad surveillance and defence system and creates a hostile environment to an incoming virus. Cells are able to detect the virus through a network of innate immune sensors that launch a response to raise alarms and initiate a warning system that places neighbouring cells in a state of readiness to stop infection. This is mediated in part by production of signalling molecules such as interferons that drive gene expression in infected and neighbouring cells to activate antiviral defences, and along with pro-inflammatory mediators, also help to coordinate a wider multicellular innate and adaptive response to contain infection.
To infect us and transmit, all viruses must overcome this front line defence, by escaping detection or by disabling the response or usually a complex combination of both. Viruses that jump between species, such as coronaviruses, must overcome this defence system in each new host. We previously found that, despite having only recently emerged in humans, isolates of SARS-CoV-2 collected at the start of the pandemic could effectively suppress activation of the human innate immune system to allow viral spread. This suggests the virus was pre-armed with countermeasures to overcome human defences. The emergence of more transmissible variants throughout the pandemic, called variants of concern (VOCs), suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is adapting to spread better in its new human host. We discovered that the VOCs were able to suppress activation of the innate immune system even more potently than the early isolates, which may increase their chance of establishing infection to transmit. This reveals the innate immune system as a key driving force in emerging virus evolution. Virus-host interactions can change the course of the innate immune response and drive disease, resulting from inappropriate immune activation that damages tissues, as occurs in severe COVID-19. All together we propose that the innate immune system is a central pivot point in pandemic virus emergence, transmission, and disease.
RESEARCH AIMS
The goal of our research is to understand how emerging viruses overcome the innate immune system. Our immediate focus is on SARS-CoV-2, as studying its evolution and adaption to humans in real-time provides an unparalleled opportunity to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying pandemic virus emergence and evolution. We aim to firstly identify the countermeasures original SARS-CoV-2 used to overcome human innate immune defences and emerge. By comparing these proteins across coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-1, MERS and bat coronaviruses, we will start to link molecular functions to virus emergence and pandemicity. This will also lead us to discover key innate immune barriers to emerging viruses and understand how they work. Secondly, we want to understand how SARS-CoV-2 variants have adapted to get better at overcoming the innate immune system to transmit more effectively. This will reveal what aspects of the innate immune system are unique to humans.
We are particularly interested in understanding how original SARS-CoV-2 proteins and the variants reprogramme the host transcriptional response to infection, by targeting epigenetic regulators, which is not well understood for acute, hit-and-run cytoplasmic RNA viruses. In this way SARS-CoV-2 variants provide an excellent discovery tool kit to uncover novel mechanisms of innate immune regulation. We will focus on understanding how SARS-CoV-2 manipulation of the innate immune system drives inappropriate responses that can contribute to disease by tipping the balance between activation of antiviral versus pro-inflammatory responses, which is relevant to understanding other diseases where the innate immune system is defective. We are expanding the impact of our research beyond SARS-CoV-2 to compare to other emerging and newly discovered viruses.
NEWS
JOIN THE LAB!
We have a PhD position available for students interested in emerging virus-host interactions, and understanding the innate immune system as a barrier to virus emergence. The PhD studentship begins October 2024. The deadline for applications is 5pm Friday 23rd February. Please see the advert below for more info:
2024_PhD_advert_LT
We will also soon be advertising a postdoctoral position, please get in touch if you’d like to find out more.
We are building a supportive team, and are always looking for highly motivated and enthusiastic students and postdocs to join us and bring their experience. We are happy to support fellowships and other funding opportunities so please get in touch to discuss suitable projects, send your CV and scientific interests, and motivation for wanting to join us.
NEW LAB SUSTAINABILITY CHAMPIONS NETWORK
We’re excited to have registered as a Sustainability Champion as part of Imperial’s new Sustainability Champion’s Networks. We’re looking forward to the upcoming events and to learn from others on ways to improve how we run the lab in the most sustainable and environmentally friendly way. This is really important to us as a lab and we are working towards our first LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework) award. For more info on LEAF see here: .
WORK EXPERIENCE
We’re delighted to have welcomed our first work experience student to the lab. Ella Nunan visited us from Australia for two weeks. Ella performed two experiments which will help us understand the mechanism of one of SARS-CoV-2’s key innate immune antagonists that is evolving in the variants.
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PRIZE
I'm absolutely delighted to have been awarded the Microbiology Society Peter Wildy Prize for our public engagement and outreach activities. I'll be giving the Prize lecture at the Microbiology Society annual conference in Edinburgh this April. For more info:
The rate of virus emergence is accelerating with ongoing climate and environmental changes and globalisation, which is something as a lab we are really interested in and keen to collaborate on. In the last 20 years, either a new virus has emerged or a virus has re-emerged in a new population nearly every year. Understanding which ones have the most potential for onwards transmission in humans, and therefore most pandemic potential, is a key challenge in assessing risk and preparing for future pandemics. There are many factors in this, but our focus is on central role of the innate immune system, as our frontline defence against all viruses, but an especially important defence against new viruses, when there is no pre-existing adaptive immunity in the population. This serves as a broad surveillance and defence system and creates a hostile environment to an incoming virus. Cells are able to detect the virus through a network of innate immune sensors that launch a response to raise alarms and initiate a warning system that places neighbouring cells in a state of readiness to stop infection. This is mediated in part by production of signalling molecules such as interferons that drive gene expression in infected and neighbouring cells to activate antiviral defences, and along with pro-inflammatory mediators, also help to coordinate a wider multicellular innate and adaptive response to contain infection.
To infect us and transmit, all viruses must overcome this front line defence, by escaping detection or by disabling the response or usually a complex combination of both. Viruses that jump between species, such as coronaviruses, must overcome this defence system in each new host. We previously found that, despite having only recently emerged in humans, isolates of SARS-CoV-2 collected at the start of the pandemic could effectively suppress activation of the human innate immune system to allow viral spread. This suggests the virus was pre-armed with countermeasures to overcome human defences. The emergence of more transmissible variants throughout the pandemic, called variants of concern (VOCs), suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is adapting to spread better in its new human host. We discovered that the VOCs were able to suppress activation of the innate immune system even more potently than the early isolates, which may increase their chance of establishing infection to transmit. This reveals the innate immune system as a key driving force in emerging virus evolution. Virus-host interactions can change the course of the innate immune response and drive disease, resulting from inappropriate immune activation that damages tissues, as occurs in severe COVID-19. All together we propose that the innate immune system is a central pivot point in pandemic virus emergence, transmission, and disease.
RESEARCH AIMS
The goal of our research is to understand how emerging viruses overcome the innate immune system. Our immediate focus is on SARS-CoV-2, as studying its evolution and adaption to humans in real-time provides an unparalleled opportunity to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying pandemic virus emergence and evolution. We aim to firstly identify the countermeasures original SARS-CoV-2 used to overcome human innate immune defences and emerge. By comparing these proteins across coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-1, MERS and bat coronaviruses, we will start to link molecular functions to virus emergence and pandemicity. This will also lead us to discover key innate immune barriers to emerging viruses and understand how they work. Secondly, we want to understand how SARS-CoV-2 variants have adapted to get better at overcoming the innate immune system to transmit more effectively. This will reveal what aspects of the innate immune system are unique to humans.
We are particularly interested in understanding how original SARS-CoV-2 proteins and the variants reprogramme the host transcriptional response to infection, by targeting epigenetic regulators, which is not well understood for acute, hit-and-run cytoplasmic RNA viruses. In this way SARS-CoV-2 variants provide an excellent discovery tool kit to uncover novel mechanisms of innate immune regulation. We will focus on understanding how SARS-CoV-2 manipulation of the innate immune system drives inappropriate responses that can contribute to disease by tipping the balance between activation of antiviral versus pro-inflammatory responses, which is relevant to understanding other diseases where the innate immune system is defective. We are expanding the impact of our research beyond SARS-CoV-2 to compare to other emerging and newly discovered viruses.
NEWS
JOIN THE LAB!
We have a PhD position available for students interested in emerging virus-host interactions, and understanding the innate immune system as a barrier to virus emergence. The PhD studentship begins October 2024. The deadline for applications is 5pm Friday 23rd February. Please see the advert below for more info:
2024_PhD_advert_LT
We will also soon be advertising a postdoctoral position, please get in touch if you’d like to find out more.
We are building a supportive team, and are always looking for highly motivated and enthusiastic students and postdocs to join us and bring their experience. We are happy to support fellowships and other funding opportunities so please get in touch to discuss suitable projects, send your CV and scientific interests, and motivation for wanting to join us.
NEW LAB SUSTAINABILITY CHAMPIONS NETWORK
We’re excited to have registered as a Sustainability Champion as part of Imperial’s new Sustainability Champion’s Networks. We’re looking forward to the upcoming events and to learn from others on ways to improve how we run the lab in the most sustainable and environmentally friendly way. This is really important to us as a lab and we are working towards our first LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework) award. For more info on LEAF see here: .
WORK EXPERIENCE
We’re delighted to have welcomed our first work experience student to the lab. Ella Nunan visited us from Australia for two weeks. Ella performed two experiments which will help us understand the mechanism of one of SARS-CoV-2’s key innate immune antagonists that is evolving in the variants.
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PRIZE
I'm absolutely delighted to have been awarded the Microbiology Society Peter Wildy Prize for our public engagement and outreach activities. I'll be giving the Prize lecture at the Microbiology Society annual conference in Edinburgh this April. For more info: