Episode 30: Conversation with Professor Sharon Peacock and Professor Ravindra Gupta

On January 30 2020, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) that originated in Wuhan, China. Healthcare experts have warned that Covid-19 could rapidly spread, if not properly contained, and many governments around the world have begun to take precautionary measures to ensure public health safety. Amid the international concern and heightened fears about the disease, what is fact and what is fiction? The Asia Society Hong Kong Center brings you regular updates on the coronavirus story in Hong Kong that has reverberations elsewhere in the world. We are pleased to present on-the-ground public health experts and internationally renowned specialists with the latest facts and evidence-based findings regarding this epidemic outbreak. In episode 30, join the in-depth discussion about the Covid-19 variants from Professor Sharon Peacock, Professor of Public Health & Microbiology at the University of Cambridge, Professor Ravindra K Gupta, Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease at the University of Cambridge, moderated by Elizabeth Cheung, Health Reporter at SCMP.

Ravindra K Gupta, BMBCh, MA, MPH, PhD, FRCP, FRCPath
Ravi Gupta has been Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases since 2019. Having completed his medical undergraduate studies at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, he pursued a Masters in Public Health at Harvard as a Fulbright scholar. Upon return he trained in infectious diseases in Oxford and London, and completed his PhD at UCL on HIV-1 evasion of antiretrovirals and innate immune responses. He has worked extensively in HIV drug resistance, both at molecular and population levels, and his work demonstrating escalating global resistance led to change in WHO treatment guidelines for HIV. Whilst Professor at UCL, he led the team demonstrating HIV cure in the ‘London Patient’ – the world’s only living HIV cure, and the second recorded in history (Gupta et al, Nature 2019). In 2020 he was named as one of the 100 Most influential people worldwide by TIME Magazine. He has deployed his expertise in RNA virus genetics and biology during the COVID-19 pandemic to report the first evidence for immune escape of SARS-CoV-2 within an individual, defining the process by which new variants likely arise (Kemp et al, Nature 2021), and also reporting the first data on Pfizer BioNTech vaccine-induced antibody responses against the B.1.1.7 variant that arose in the UK (Collier et al, Nature 2021). Professor Gupta is also a co-opted member of NERVTAG, the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Group which advises the UK government on COVID-19.

Professor Sharon Peacock BM, BA, MSc, DTM&H, MRCP, MRCPath, PhD,
FMedSci, CBE
Sharon Peacock is currently Professor of Public Health and Microbiology in the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, and Executive Director of the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium – which has generated half the global SARS-CoV-2 genomes to date. She has built her scientific career around pathogen genomics, antimicrobial resistance, and a range of tropical diseases included melioidosis, leptospirosis and rickettsial infections. Professor Peacock has published more than 450 peer reviewed papers and manages £38M of funding. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and an elected Member of EMBO. In 2015, Professor Peacock received a CBE for services to medical microbiology, and in 2018 she won the Unilever Colworth Prize for her outstanding contribution to translational microbiology.

Elizabeth Cheung, Senior Reporter, South China Morning Post. She has been covering healthcare news for the South China Morning Post’s Hong Kong desk since 2014, and has been one of the reporters leading the Covid-19 pandemic
coverage since the outbreak started in early 2020. Apart from Covid-19, she also writes about government health policies, breakthrough medical treatments and research, and hospital blunders. Prior to SCMP, Elizabeth worked as a local news reporter at Asia Television. She graduated from the Chinese University of Hong
Kong with a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Journalism and Communication and
holds a Master’s in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
(Moderator)

Got Questions? Ask them here in advance (beginning April 21) or during the program:
https://app.sli.do/event/nok26oaj (code: #COVID19Episode30)