Defining molecular endotypes of respiratory viral disease for precision medicine
Supervisors
Dr Ana Da Silva Filipe, School of Infection and Immunity, University of Glasgow
Prof David L Robertson, School of Infection and Immunity, University of Glasgow
Dr Karen McLuskey, School of Molecular Biosciences, University of Glasgow
Prof David Dockrell, Centre for Inflammation Research, University of Edinburgh
Summary
Respiratory viral infections cause highly variable disease, reflecting differences in viral types, infection contexts and the host response. This PhD will investigate the host molecular pathways underlying this heterogeneity and explore how they can inform personalised approaches to patient management and treatment. The student will integrate large clinical transcriptomic datasets to identify robust host signatures associated with disease severity and assess their potential for early patient stratification. By comparing airway and blood responses, the project will determine whether accessible systemic biomarkers can reliably reflect processes occurring at the site of infection. It will also investigate how pathways associated with severity vary with demographic factors such as age and sex, and assess how well commonly used in vitro infection models reproduce these patient-associated responses. Severity and demographic-associated molecular endotypes will be integrated with perturbational drug data and machine-learning approaches to identify actionable host pathways and prioritise candidate therapies. Together, the project aims to improve disease stratification, inform the development of more representative experimental models, and support personalised host-directed treatment of respiratory viral disease.
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