News from the lab

We’re thrilled to welcome Dr. Dongsheng Luo to our lab at the University of Essex as an MRC NIRG-funded postdoc. Dongsheng brings rich experience from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Institut Pasteur, and LSHTM, with a focus on virus evolution, zoonoses, and virus-host interactions. His work will focus on decoding the mild pathobiology of common cold coronaviruses to identify pan-coronavirus antiviral targets.

Welcome aboard, Dongsheng!

Stathis Giotis presented his research at WSV2025 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during the Third International Conference of the World Society for Virology. His talk, titled "Metabolic reprogramming in nasal epithelial cells by SARS-CoV-2 variants: Implications for replication and host response," highlighted how different SARS-CoV-2 variants alter host cell metabolism and immune responses, with potential consequences for viral replication and disease outcomes.

Many thanks to AMI for the Scientific Event Travel Grant that supported Stathis Giotis's visit and participation in WSV2025 in Kuala Lumpur.

Thrilled to share that Deimante Ramonaite from our lab has been shortlisted for the
@shecancode
STEM Role Model Award! Her passion for science communication & inspiring STEM girls is incredible. Vote for her here: https://lnkd.in/evSZvG7E #WomenInSTEM #STEMAwards #SheCanCode

Exciting news! Our new website for the Safe Humans Safe Bats Nigeria Initiative is now live! Explore how we’re combining bat conservation with public health to build safer, healthier ecosystems. https://safehumanssafebats.org #BatConservation #Zoonoses #PublicHealth #Nigeria
​

Oluchi Ogudo of SMACON has completed the sociological survey in Makurdi Schools. This ttok place during February-March 2025 and is part of the Safe Humans Safe Bats Initiative, funded by the University of Essex

Stathis Giotis presented Bat to the Future: Untangling the Origins of COVID-19 & the Risk of Future Outbreaksat Café Scientifique at Colchester
On March 12, 2025, Dr. Stathis Giotis spoke at Café Scientifique at Colchester, exploring the role of bats in the emergence of viruses like COVID-19. His talk delved into the scientific evidence surrounding the origins of the pandemic, the mechanisms that make bats unique viral hosts, and the ongoing risks of future outbreaks.
http://cafescientifique.org/uk/colchester

Dr. Giotis has contributed expert commentary on a groundbreaking new study examining the bat coronavirus HKU5. The research highlights that HKU5 utilises the same receptor as SARS-CoV-2 to enter human cells. Comments have been distributed across UK and international media: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/health/scientist-verdict-new-bat-coronavirus-31095620
https://www.t-online.de/gesundheit/aktuelles/id_100613764/china-neues-fledermaus-coronavirus-entdeckt-risiko-einer-pandemie-.html
http://www.msn.com/de-de/gesundheit/other/china-neues-fledermaus-coronavirus-entdeckt-risiko-einer-pandemie/ar-AA1zUyMT?apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1
https://www.aerzteblatt.de/news/fachleute-reagieren-interessiert-aber-ohne-aufregung-auf-neues-coronavirus-36e53692-de0a-4c38-addd-e5811f69cfc1

Excited to kickoff the SafeHumans SafeBats initiative in Nigeria funded by @Uni_of_Essex
Huge thanks to @smaconbats, @UniAbuja, Uni of Makurdi, @infoabu2014, @_BCT_, and all our amazing partners for joining us on this mission to protect health and biodiversity #BenueTwitter

Great fun having our Christmas do with the lab team in Maldon, Essex! A perfect way to celebrate the season and an amazing year of hard work

Stathis Giotis received an Impact Accelerator Fund 2024-2025 from the University of Essex (£10,000; PI) “SaveBats Nigeria: Reducing bat hunting through community-based conservation and public health advocacy in Nigeria.

Stathis Giotis gave a talk to @UniOfSurrey Section of Virology

Stathis Giotis was a co-I in a successful bid to Sir Jules Thorn Charitable trust "A translational research radiation facility to tackle cancer and viral infections" https://julesthorntrust.org.uk/

Congratulations to Alfred Ho on completing his PhD through a collaboration between
@imperialcollege and the @HKUniversity Graduating in Hong Kong marks an incredible achievement. Well done, Alfred!

Tukur Abdullahi attended the African Virology Conference in Abuja from November 25-28, 2024, themed “Trends in emerging and re-emerging viruses.” He presented part of his PhD research, titled “Differential type I IFN response and the effect of temperature on OC43".

Stathis Giotis had a fantastic experience at the Single-Cell & Spatial RNA Sequencing workshop at the
@EarlhamInst! The hands-on sessions and cutting-edge insights were invaluable. Huge thanks to the team for making it such a rewarding event!

BioRxiv paper https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.06.616852v1.full.pdf

Had a fantastic time speaking at the #AvianImmunology Research Group Meeting in Vienna 2024! Great conference with insightful talks and engaging discussions. https://www.airg2024.at/​​​​​​​​

Excited to share that we've been awarded a Royal Society grant to develop a reverse genetics system for common cold coronaviruses. Looking forward to getting started on this project! Thank you Royal Society!

Excited to announce that we've been awarded an MRC NIRG to study single-cell RNA-sequencing and seasonal coronaviruses in collaboration with @uclh and @UKHSA. Stay tuned—there will be a postdoc position available soon for anyone interested in joining our team.

Stathis Giotis has talked to local Essex media (Basildon Echo, Colchester gazette) and radio stations (Heart FM and Greatest Hits radio) about the mPox outbreak https://hellorayo.co.uk/hits-radio/uk/news/disease-expert-from-university-of-essex-says-we-must-raise-public-awareness-to-mpox-formerly-monkey-pox-to-prevent-spread/

Congratulations to Deimante Ramonaityte on successfully completing her BSc in Biomedical Sciences! Deimante will be joining us for an MRes in the next lab. Also, congratulations to Dami Ogunjinmi on successfully completing her MRes! Her hard work and dedication in our lab have been inspiring.Well done, Deimante and Dami!​​​​​​​​

Stathis Giotis presented a talk on androgens and viruses at #PintOfScience at The 3 wise monkeys bar in Colchester​

Stathis Giotis contributed to an article published in The Telegraph on 16th of April: How migraines, flu and heart attacks affect women and men differently
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/conditions/cold-flu/everyday-illnesses-affect-men-and-women-differently-flu/​​

Our latest study, now out in @JMedVirol, delves into enzalutamide's potential as an antiviral against human coronaviruses, revealing insights into viral-Androgen Receptor signalling
Ogunjinmi OD, Abdullahi T, Somji R-A, Bevan CL, Barclay WS, Temperton N, Brooke GN, Giotis ES. The antiviral potential of the antiandrogen enzalutamide and the viral-androgen signalling interplay in seasonal coronaviruses. J Med Virol. 2024; 96:e29540. doi:10.1002/jmv.29540​

Stathis Giotis has contributed to an article by Maeve Cullinan at the Telegraph about a fatal case of Alaskapox virus https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/elderly-man-becomes-first-recorded-death-from-alaskapox/​​

Stathis Giotis has been elected as Treasurer for Europe by the World Society of Virology
https://ws-virology.org/third-wsv-election/​

Our Lab Xmas outing rocked! Post-UCL virtual virology event hangout with
Nigel Temperton as guest star was a blast. Cheers to an awesome crew!

New preprint from our lab; Investigating enzalutamide, a prostate cancer treatment, as a potential antiviral against common cold coronaviruses, we provide further evidence of an interplay between viruses and androgen signaling https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.25.568685v1

A new collaborative study in which GiotisLab was part of was accepted at Frontiers in Public Health https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1283113/abstract

Tukur Abdullahi won the 2nd prize for the best Graduate Forum presentation of the University of Essex 2023. Well done Tukur!!​​​​

Stathis Giotis presented the latest work of the lab on androgens and viral susceptibility at the meeting on Viral Pseudotypes at Nottingham.​​​​​​

Professor Nelson Fernandez presented the results of our joint PhD student Tukur Abdullahi at the Immunopharmacology Convention 2023 in Varadero, Cuba.

Stathis Giotis was invited to give a talk at the Biosciences Conference at the University of East London

Stathis Giotis presented our recent work on bat viruses at the WSV2023 in Riga, Latvia

Riaz Somji and Tukur Abdullahi presented their work on mTOR and host innate immune responses to seasonal coronaviruses at the Microbiology Society annual conference in Birmingham

Lab outing to the 3 wise monkeys in Colchester​​​​​

A review paper was published in Viruses; Giotis, E.S.; Cil, E.; Brooke, G.N. Use of Antiandrogens as Therapeutic Agents in COVID-19 Patients. Viruses2022, 14, 2728. https://doi.org/10.3390/v141227280

Great meeting on pseudotyping by VPU at NIBSC

Stathis Giotis is accepted as a member of the UKRI/BBSRC panel of experts.

A preprint review on anti androgens as COVID-19 was released in collaboration with Greg Brooke's group at Essex
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202211.0075/v1

Celebrating the retirement of Professor Mike Skinner at Imperial College. Happy retirement Mike!

Celebrating our last lab meeting for the Summer and the heatwave in Essex

Stathis Giotis contributed to an article by Helen Collis at politico.eu about monkeypox and vaccines
https://www.politico.eu/article/countries-administer-monkeypox-vaccine-as-who-warns-of-limited-supplies/

Riaz Somji and Tiffany Teoh joined our lab to do a PhD (3-years) and Masters by Dissertation (MSD; 1 year) respectively.
Wellcome!

Ogunjinmi (Dami) Oluwadamilola and Stathis Giotis presented (poster and oral presentations) at the annual conference of the UK Microbiology Society, which was held in Belfast (4-7 April 2022).

​Tukur Abdullahi from Nigeria is the newest member of our lab. His PhD will be focused on the comparative host innate responses to seasonal coronaviruses.

Our paper 'Naïve Human Macrophages Are Refractory to SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Exhibit a Modest Inflammatory Response Early in Infection' is now published in Viruses
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/14/2/441

A new preprint was released on bioRxiv: Primary human macrophages exhibit a modest inflammatory response early in SARS-CoV-2 infection
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.02.478897v1

Stathis Giotis, David Matthews and Jacqueline Smith are editors of the research topic 'Host innate immune responses to infections by avian- and bat-borne viruses volume II' in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology
https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/31807/host-innate-immune-responses-to-infections-by-avian--and-bat-borne-viruses-volume-ii
​https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09x4zlr

Stathis Giotis was interviewed by the BBC Essex radio morning show about COVID-19 vaccines and the need to reintroduce some restriction measures in light of the rising cases of COVID-19
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09x4zlr

Stathis Giotis spoke on BBC London about the Omicron variant and the recently introduced measures to slow its spread in the UK
​https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09x4zlr

Just wrapped up the last lab meeting of the summer! Exciting updates, brilliant ideas, and a great way to close out the season. Enjoy the summer everybody!