ProfessorNuno Faria

Nuno Faria is Professor of Viral Genomic Epidemiology at the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis (MRC GIDA), Imperial College London, where he co-leads the Pathogen Genomic Epidemiology theme and directs the DeZi Network (Dengue and Zika Immunology and Genomics Multi-Country Network). He also holds a Visiting Professor appointment at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil.

His research integrates pathogen genomics, serology, and mathematical modelling to investigate the evolution, transmission, and epidemiology of rapidly evolving viruses, including dengue, Zika, chikungunya, yellow fever, Oropouche, SARS-CoV-2, HIV, Ebola, and influenza. He serves on international scientific boards and World Health Organization (WHO) technical advisory groups, including the WHO Global Arbovirus Initiative and the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE). He has also contributed to the WHO Eliminate Yellow Fever Epidemics (EYE) strategy, the WHO Zika TaskForce, and co-authored the first WHO guidance on implementing SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequencing for maximum public health impact.

Prior to joining Imperial College London, Nuno obtained his PhD from the Rega Institute at KU Leuven, Belgium. He subsequently served as Lecturer in Infectious Disease Control, a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow, Fellow in Sciences at Balliol College, and Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, where he was also a co-lead of the Pandemic Genomics programme at the Oxford Martin School.

He currently leads the DeZi Network, an international consortium spanning Africa, Asia, and the Americas that integrates genomics, serology, diagnostics, and epidemiology to strengthen arbovirus surveillance, research, and public health response. The network is supported by the Wellcome Trust. He also co-leads FEEVIR, which is developing metagenomic surveillance for epidemic prevention in the DRC–Angola cross-border region with support from the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence. 

Previous collaborative initiatives include the UK–Brazil Centre for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnosis, Genomics and Epidemiology (CADDE), ArboSPREAD with the National Institute for Health Research (INIS) at the Ministry of Health in Angola, and the Zika in Brazil Real-Time Analysis (ZiBRA) project. His research has been supported by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council (MRC), FAPESP, Temasek Foundation, WHO, British Council, GCRF, and the Gates Foundation.