Ryan Thwaites

Background

About Ryan Thwaites

Ryan Thwaites is a Lecturer in Respiratory Immunology at the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London. Ryan obtained his PhD in 2015 in the field of innate immunology from the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex. Following on from this work, he joined Professor Peter Openshaw and Professor Trevor Hansel at the NHLI. My research focuses on the immune system of the human respiratory tract, incorporating studies of natural viral infections and 'challenge' studies in healthy adults. These challenge studies include non-infectious human models of innate immune activation (such as Toll-like receptor agonists), allergens and experimental human infection models with respiratory viruses such as Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), influenza, vaccine candidates, and SARS-CoV-2 (the cause of COVID-19). These studies furthered the development of non-invasive techniques for sampling the airways, including the development of nasosorption as a tool for studying respiratory viral infections in children. This work has challenged the existing dogmas of respiratory viral disease severity in children, developed the minimally-invasive endophenotyping of chronic respiratory diseases, and identified the role of neutrophils in governing susceptibility to respiratory viral infections. During the COVID-19 pandemic I worked within the ISARIC4C consortium to profile the immunopathogenic response to SARS-CoV-2 infection in cases of severe disease. These studies continued into monitoring the nature and longevity of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after natural infection and vaccination. These studies sought to identify the elements of the immune response to infection that contributed to disease severity, versus those that contribute to clearing infection. The Thwaites lab group continues to study the immune response to respiratory viral infections, with particular interests in the drivers of disease severity and the factors governing susceptibility to viral infections.