Emeritus ProfessorMike Skinner

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Innate immunity, in particular the antiviral type I interferon system, and viral mechanisms to modulate the host responses (speciality - the avian system).
Emerging viruses, enzootic and zoonotic, panzootic and pandemic.
NEWS
Academic Lead & Presenter (with Prof John Tregoning) on new Imperial online courses (launched 22 March 2024 on the Coursera MOOC platform) on virology and vaccinology. Mike presents courses entitled: "What Are Viruses And How Do We Work With Them?" and "What Do Viruses Do And How Do We Control Them". See Imperial press release and YouTube channel.
Interviewed by Nic Robinson (BBC Radio 4 Today Programme; 16th Sept 2020) about his experiences at the UK Lighthouse PCR testing Laboratory (reported in The Telegraph the next day)
Served as a lab support volunteer at the UK Lighthouse National COVID-19 [PCR] Testing Laboratory (Milton Keynes site) between May and July, for 4 weeks of 12h nightshifts and 4 weeks of 12h dayshifts. For insight into the work, see published accounts by Prof Alan McNally and Dr Neil Dufton.
COVID-19 Seasonality: BBC Science Focus Magazine 25 Mar 2020 (discussed whether COVID-19 might become endemic and show seasonality)
Expert reaction to questions about COVID-19 and viral load: Science Media Centre 25 Feb 2020 (discussed virus dose in relation to infection of clinical staff and host genetics in relation to rare cases of mortality amongst healthy, young victims)
The DRREVIP sLoLa consortium is now supporting a new, community resource supporting the study of Avian (including poultry) Virology, at AvianVirusResearch.org. The website includes: features on the viruses themselves, innate immunity, vaccines (academic and commercial aspects), meeting notices, short reviews of relevant papers. Do join us in making this a valuable open resource!
Co-organised, with Prof Venugopal Nair, the 2018 Microbiology Society's Focused Meeting on the "Molecular Biology and Pathogenesis of Avian Viruses" (3 - 4th Sept 2018 at St. Catherine's College University of Oxford, UK), held immediately before the Avian Immunology Group (AIRG) 2018 meeting at the same venue, and the Microbiology Society's Focused Meeting on the "Molecular Biology and Pathogenesis of Avian Viruses" at Charles Darwin House, London, 27-29th Sept 2016.
A new website resource for avian virologists and innate immunologists, "ChISG Browser", displays data from our Vet Research paper for each ISG (including screen grabs of the RNA-seq reads from mock and IFN-treated cells mapped to the annotated Galgal4 chicken genome).
In a new paper (Veterinary Research, 5-Aug-2016), by DRREVIP postdoc in my lab Dr Stathis Giotis, we describe the Chicken "Interferome", about 200 genes (many of which will encode anti-viral proteins) induced by chicken IFN-α, as determined and cross-validated using RNA-seq and two microarray technologies.
"Identification of ANP32A as the host factor restricting the host range of avian influenza viruses". Nature (7-Jan-2016). Lead author Dr Jason Long (DRREVIP postdoc in Prof Wendy Barclay's lab) in collaboration with Dr Efstathios Giotis (DRREVIP postdoc in my lab). With a commentary in Nature (7-Jan-2016) 'News & Views' by Anice Lowen and the featured paper on Vince Racaniello's 'This Week in Virology' (TWiV) Episode 377: "Chicken with a side of Zika" (21-Feb-2016; from 00:40:40).
Development of improved avian cell substrates for diagnosis of emerging diseases of birds and for production of vaccine viruses (for poultry and for human vaccines), with members of the ‘Developing Rapid Responses to Emerging Virus Infections of Poultry’ (DRREVIP) BBSRC-funded, sLoLa consortium (which he coordinates) based in London, Cambridge and Edinburgh.

FEATURED VIDEO:


BOARDS & GROUPS:
Honorary Fellow of The Pirbright Institute.

Appointed Chair of the Health & Safety Executive's (HSE) Scientific Advisory Group on Genetic Modification (Contained Use) [SACGM(CU)] (2014; reappointed 2017 to date).

Microbiology Society (formerly Society for General Microbiology) Elected Member of Council and Governing Trustee (2015-2017).

Appointed member of the Houghton Trust; "Promoting research into poultry diseases" (since 2015)

Appointed member of the Health & Safety Executive's (HSE) Scientific Advisory Group on Genetic Modification (Contained Use) [SACGM(CU)] (2004-2014).

Chair of the Poxviridae Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, ICTV (2009-2014).

Founding member of Wellcome Trust-funded UK HIV Vaccines Consortium (UK HVC), coordinator Prof Jonathan N Weber.

Ad hoc co-opted expert to DEFRA's (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE).

Journal of General Virology Editorial Board (1994-1997 and since 2009).

Member of the Pool of Experts for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's (BBSRC) Research Committees (2008-2011).

SACGM(CU)-co-opted member of HSE Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens Working Group on a Single regulatory framework for work with human and animal pathogens (2008-2009).

Microbiology Society (formerly Society for General Microbiology) Virus Group Committee (2000-2003).

PROMOTING SCIENCE:
Science Media Centre - regular contributor, e.g.: briefings on: avian influenza H7N9; reaction to publications on: Ebola virus, recombination between vaccine viruses and vaccine-driven evolution of pathogens; commenting on press releases: PHE on influenza vaccine efficacy.

School talks and Cafés Scientifique, including at Science Oxford, broadly on Emerging viruses and Recombinant Vaccines.

Multiple media interviews on avian influenza H5N1 and pandemic influenza H1N1.

Background:
See my Google Scholar profile

Molecular biology of mammalian viral pathogens, specifically:

• HIV (tat/TAR interactions; at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge),

• Poliovirus (analysis of the role of secondary structure of 5' non-coding RNA in neurovirulence and vaccine attenuation, using: bioinformatics, in vitro structural analysis and reverse genetics) with Prof Jeffrey Almond, in Leicester then Reading,

• Coronaviruses (in the pre-SARS & SARS-CoV-2 era) with Prof Stuart Siddell, then in Würzburg, Germany.

Before moving to Imperial, also led research into important veterinary pathogens, at the Houghton and Compton Laboratories of the Institute for Animal Health (now The Pirbright Institute), specifically:

avian poxviruses (their molecular biology, phylogeny & as candidate recombinant vaccine vectors)
and two emerging pathogens of poultry, which are still of global economic significance:
a novel retrovirus (avian leukosis virus subgroup J; ALV-J) which emerged by recombination of an exogenous virus with an ancient retroviral element in the chicken genome (deriving the genome sequence of the prototypic isolate, HPRS-103; Bai J, et al. (1995). Sequence of Host-range Determinants in the ENV Gene of a Full-length, Infectious Proviral Clone of Exogenous Avian-leukosis Virus HPRS-103 Confirms That it Represents a New Subgroup (Designated J), Journal of General Virology, Vol: 76, Pages: 181-187; Bai J, Payne LN, Skinner MA (1995) HPRS-103 (Exogenous Avian-leukosis Virus, Subgroup-J) has an ENV Gene Related to those of Endogenous Elements EAV-0 and E51 and an E-Element found previously only in Sarcoma-viruses, Journal of Virology, Vol: 69, Pages: 779-784)
a birnavirus ('very virulent' infectious bursal disease virus, vvIBDV), which probably emerged by reassortment of its two genome segments (deriving the genome sequence of the prototypic isolate, UK661; Brown MD & Skinner MA (1996) Coding sequences of both genome segments of a European 'very virulent' infectious bursal disease virus, Virus Research, Vol: 40, Pages: 1-15)