Ruklanthi (Rukie) de Alwis

Deputy Director, Center for Outbreak Preparedness, Duke-NUS Medical School

Ruklanthi (Rukie) de Alwis is the Deputy Director of the Center for Outbreak Preparedness (COP) and an Assistant Professor at the Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Programme. Rukie is a viral immunologist and vaccinologist with over a decade of experience working on infectious diseases. Her research interests include antibody responses, surveillance, and vaccines against viral pathogens. She particularly values working in close collaboration with local and international partners, including low and middle-income countries. 

Rukie obtained her PhD in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, USA. During her doctoral work, she contributed to mapping of both neutralizing and enhancing human antibody responses following infections and vaccination against arboviruses (specifically Dengue virus). She then spent some time at La Jolla Institute, CA, USA learning about virus-specific T cell responses. Rukie further acquired training in epidemiology and public health during her MPH at LSHTM, UK. After which she worked for Oxford University, UK as an epidemiologist, setting up epidemiological surveillance studies and vaccine trials at OUCRU, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Her vast interests in both infectious diseases and vaccination ultimately brought her to the Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore. At Duke-NUS, she set up systems serology to invesgate antibody responses to natural infections or vaccinations against Dengue virus, yellow fever virus,  and chikungunya virus etc. During COVID-19, she worked together with a network of collaborators on developing a self-amplifying RNA vaccine against COVID-19. 

Rukie now leads and support several vaccine-related projects and genomics initiatives, including the Asia Pathogen Genomics Initiative (Asia PGI). Asia PGI partners with 15 Asian countries (mostly lower resourced) to improve access to pathogen genomic sequencing to maximize public health utility. One of her key roles in Asia PGI is to ensure that pathogen genomic information is utilized to optimize new tool design (i.e. diagnostics and vaccines) and implementation.