Professor Nicola Lewis

Nicola Lewis (BSc BVetMed PhD PGCert FHEA MRCVS) is Director of the Worldwide Influenza Centre and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Response at the Francis Crick Institute in London. She is also Professor in One Health Evolutionary Biology at the Royal Veterinary College, from where she also graduated as a veterinary surgeon. After a period in general practice Nicola returned to the University of Cambridge to undertake a PhD in infectious diseases – focussing on using state-of-the-art computational methods to quantify the evolution of influenza A viruses in animals.

Her research now focuses on investigating the ecology and evolution of influenza A viruses in multiple animal hosts and the risks that these viruses might pose to the human population, with a global context. This internationally-collaborative high-impact research spans huge diversity from implementing surveillance in wild birds, analyzing emerging highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, to using state-of-the-art computational techniques to analyse influenza virus antigenic and genetic evolution, to assess pandemic risk, and to inform international stakeholders on vaccine strains and antiviral susceptibility. Her recent research publications encompass avian, swine, marine mammal and human influenza A viruses as well as Newcastle Disease.

She is a partner in the UK Covinet consortium and serves on the WHO TAG-CO-VAC Subgroup on Strain Selection for SARS-CoV2 vaccine. She is also a co-investigator on PROVAC: a project on selecting vaccine strains that provide the best possible protection against SARS-CoV2 for the UK population. In her roles, she provides consultancy to a range of stakeholders but specifically including the European Commission, WOAH, FAO, EFSA, ECDC, WHO and UKHSA. Alongside her WHOCC analyses of human seasonal influenza virus evolution, Nicola also contributes data and analyses biennially to the WHO Vaccine Composition Meeting submission for animal influenza viruses of zoonotic potential.