I am a Senior Lecturer at Hull York Medical School and Deputy Director of Research for Hull York Medical School in York, where I lead an interdisciplinary research team at the Skin Research Centre, University of York.
My role brings together research leadership and discovery science, providing a strategic link between infectious disease, skin biology, immunology and global health.
Our research addresses fundamental questions about infection and immunity, with a particular focus on the medically important interactions that occur between disease-causing viruses, their insect vectors and the mammalian host. We are especially interested in viruses spread by mosquitoes and sandflies, and how immune and stromal responses in the skin shape susceptibility to infection. These viruses represent an important and growing class of emerging infections, with increasing relevance to human and animal health.
A second major theme of our work is understanding inflammatory diseases with a high clinical burden. Our recent publications include studies of psoriasis, systemic sclerosis and multiple sclerosis. To support this work, we have established close collaborative links with clinical researchers at NHS teaching hospitals, enabling access to specialist clinical expertise, patient cohorts and human samples.
Our research priorities are to:
- Undertake leading research in infectious and inflammatory disease
- Identify new mechanisms of immune function in skin that define disease outcome
- Understand how host, virus, vector and environmental factors combine to shape susceptibility to infection and inflammatory disease
- Identify new therapies and vaccines that target these responses to improve clinical outcome
We also have a strong commitment to public engagement. Our work has been reported by a range of media outlets, including Scientific American, Nature, Science, BBC, Time Magazine, New Scientist and The Conversation. In response to the COVID-19 lockdown, I co-founded and continue to co-chair the International Virtual Seminars on Arbovirus Biology, which provides an open international forum for researchers working on virus–host–vector interactions.
In 2024, I was recruited to the new Skin Research Centre at the University of York, a world-leading environment for infectious disease and immunology research. My role brings new expertise across several key disciplines and supports opportunities to build partnerships with clinicians, industry and other stakeholders. As Deputy Director of Research, I contribute to research governance, REF preparation, postgraduate development and cross-sector collaboration. I am particularly motivated by strengthening coherence between our research centres, supporting an inclusive and ambitious research culture, and helping translate excellent discovery science into broader academic, clinical and societal impact.
Mosquito-borne viruses and the skin
We study how the skin determines the outcome of mosquito-borne virus infections. Viruses such as Zika, dengue and chikungunya infect many millions of people each year. Most are found in the tropics, but climate change and globalisation are spreading their range; competent mosquito vectors are now established in parts of southern Europe, bringing these diseases ever closer to the UK. With many different viruses capable of causing outbreaks, developing specific medicines for each is difficult. We need to understand the fundamental biology of how these infections establish in the body, starting at the point where it all begins: the mosquito bite in the skin.
Tissue state at the bite site
Our work has revealed that the state of skin at the moment a mosquito bites is a critical and previously unrecognised determinant of whether infection takes hold. We have shown that prior UV exposure dramatically enhances virus infection in the skin by reprogramming fibroblasts, the structural cells of the dermis, into wound-repair states that are highly permissive to viral replication. Mosquito biting itself further reprogrammes these cells, and the two effects are additive. These findings identify the fibroblast wound-repair response as a key replication niche for arboviruses at the inoculation site, and suggest that environmental conditioning of skin before a bite may be as important as the virus itself in determining infection outcome.
Skin disease and virus susceptibility
We have also found that common inflammatory skin conditions alter susceptibility to mosquito-borne viruses. Skin and blood cells from psoriasis patients show reduced Zika virus replication compared with healthy controls, a phenotype that persists even when patients are on biologic therapies. These observations reinforce the idea that the tissue state of skin — whether shaped by environmental exposure or by disease — is a fundamental determinant of arbovirus susceptibility.
Our goal
We are now working to identify the specific cellular and molecular programmes that make conditioned skin permissive or resistant to infection, and to determine whether these states can be manipulated. By understanding susceptibility at the level of tissue state rather than the virus alone, we aim to uncover new and broadly applicable approaches to limiting infection at the earliest stage of transmission.
Chemokines and Inflammation
- Prof Gerry Graham, University of Glasgow
- Dr Kave Shams, Consultant Dermatologist, University of Leeds
- Dr Francesco Del Galdo, Consultant Rheumatologist, University of Leeds
Virology
- Dr Alain Kohl, MRC Centre for Virus Research
- Prof Andres Merits, University of Tartu, Estonia
Vector Biology
- Dr Emilie Pondeville, MRC Centre for Virus Research
- Prof Luke Alphey, University of York
Clive is a member of the Skin Research Centre.