Professors Sharon Peacock and Ravi Gupta and will be honoured at The Microbiology Society Annual Awards held in Birmingham, which began yesterday (19 April) and run until Thursday.
The Microbiology Society’s prizes recognise excellence and are awarded to those making significant contributions in the field of microbiology, based on nominations from the membership.
Winners are selected for their work to advance understanding of microbiology and champion the contribution made by microbiology, members, and their work in addressing global challenges.
Also celebrating will be another expert from the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Dr Tanmay Bharat, who is a programme leader at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
Professor Peacock, a non-executive director at CUH and professor of public health at the University of Cambridge, wins the coveted Marjory Stephenson Prize awarded for exceptional contributions to microbiology.
She is an academic clinical microbiologist and founding director of the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium, (COG-UK) formed in April 2020 to provide SARS-CoV-2 genomes to UK public health agencies, the NHS and researchers. Generating information on variants proved vital for their detection and tracking, and for studies of viral transmissibility, immune evasion, and disease severity.
Professor Peacock has dedicated more than a decade of her career to the translation of pathogen sequencing into clinical and public health microbiology. She has also used sequencing to examine the extent to which antibiotic-resistant organisms can spread between humans, livestock, and the environment.
Over her career, Professor Peacock has raised more than £60 million in science funding, published more than 500 peer-reviewed papers, and trained a generation of scientists in the UK and elsewhere.
She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and an elected Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and Academia Europaea.
In 2015, she received a CBE for services to medical microbiology, and in 2018 won the Unilever Colworth Prize for outstanding contribution to translational microbiology. In 2021, Professor Peacock received the Medical Research Council Millennium Medal.
In 2020, 2021 and 2022 Professor Peacock was named in the annual Highly Cited Researchers list from Clarivate, a global leader in trusted and transformative intelligence.
She said: “I consider the scientific community fortunate in having the benefit of the ongoing contributions made by the Microbiology Society.”
Professor Gupta, an infectious disease consultant at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) and a University of Cambridge professor, is winner of the Translational Microbiology Prize.
In Spring 2020 Professor Gupta’s team introduced the SAMBA II point of care test into clinical practice at Addenbrooke’s for the rapid diagnosis of COVID-19.
His lab studied the evolution of the virus, the response to antibody-based therapies, and new variants. He became a co-opted member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), which advises Government.
Professor Gupta has been Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases since 2019 and has worked extensively in HIV drug resistance, contributing globally. His lab works between the UK and the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban, South Africa.
He was named as one of the world’s most influential researchers in the Clarivate 2022 list of Highly Cited Researchers, two years after he was named by TIME as one of the 100 Most Influential People. He is also an elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Commenting on his award, Professor Gupta, said: "It represents a recognition of the work of my team and our collaborators over the years in applying scientific knowledge to combat viruses such as HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2."
This award from an internationally reputed organisation in infectious diseases also provides impetus to continue our endeavours with ever greater passion and commitment.”
Dr Bharat wins the Fleming Prize for an early career researcher who has achieved an outstanding research record. His laboratory studies the surfaces of microscopic single-celled organisms, called prokaryotes, at the atomic level using electron tomography and associated techniques. The work has important biomedical applications for improving treatment of infections.
