Professor Polly Roy
MSc PhD FMedSci
Professor
of Virology, Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator
LSHTM
Keppel Street
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
Polly Roy is a Professor of Virology at LSHTM. For the last three decades, the predominant subject of Roy’s work, although not exclusively, has been the Bluetongue Virus (BTV), a complex layered virus that is a member of the Reoviridae family. Roy has made significant contributions to understanding the basic molecular and cell biology, atomic structure, mechanisms of virus entry, genome synthesis, RNA packaging, capsid assembly, egress and cell to cell transmission of these viruses.
Her multi-disciplinary approach and comprehensive research coverage has led to the successful development of improved diagnostic assays, efficacious VLP vaccines for BTV and several other viruses, including SARS, and alternative Replication Abortive vaccine strains.
She has supervised over 100 postdoctoral fellows, and over 70 doctoral and postgraduate students; many continued successful careers in science, occupying leading positions in their workplaces.
To promote virology and vaccine research, she has organized several successful European and overseas conferences, and was responsible for the birth of the Double-Stranded RNA Virus Symposium, approximately 35 years ago. Roy is, in particular, known for the notable “Virus Assembly” symposium series, which she has singlehandedly organised over the last 20 years, attracting many multidisciplinary top researchers from around the world.
In 2006 Roy was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2012 Roy received a Presidential Gold Medal for her contribution to science and technology from the Indian Prime Minister during the Annual Indian Science Congress (2012), along with three Nobel laureates. In the same year, Roy was a finalist in the BBSRC’s prestigious ‘Scientific Innovator of the Year’ award. In 2013 Roy received the most prestigious senior investigator award from Wellcome Trust, in recognition of her scientific achievement. In 2014, Roy was awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), for services to Virus Research in the Queen’s Birthday honours’ list. In 2020, she became an Honorary Fellow of the Indian Virological Society
Affiliations
Teaching
Professor Roy has been instrumental in the successful development of the Virology section of the MSc Medical Microbiology Course.
Research
Ongoing projects:
- Understanding the infection processes of the BTV at molecular level
- Cell entry and transcription activation of non-enveloped dsRNA viruses
- Defining the cis and trans acting factors required for assembly of infectious BTV
- Mechanism of genmoe packing
- Multivalent Reverse Genetics based ECRA vaccine for BTV and AHS
- Contributing to COVID vaccine development and related topics
Post-Doctoral Research Fellows and Assistants
Adeline Kerviel - PhD
Bjorn Mohl - PhD
Ampah Khamal Kwesi - PhD
Kinda Al-Shaikhahmed - PhD
Po-Yu Sung - PhD
Raghavendran Kulasegaran Shylini - PhD
Shah Kamranur Rahman - PhD
Thomas Labadie - PhD
Weining Wu – PhD
Sara Bissett - PhD
Dongsheng Luo - PhD
Edward Sullivan - PhD
Andrew Davies – MSc
Collaborations
Professor Roy collaborates with a wide range of scientists and institutions around the world including the UK, US, Japan, China, and European countries (France, Germany and Spain).Publications
Prof Roy has over 365 scientific publications, considering articles and book chapters. She has written Fields Virology chapters from the 2nd Edition to the current 7th Edition. She also makes contributions as a reviewer, guest editor and editorial board member for prestigious journals in the field, namely Viruses, Vaccines, Journal of Virology & Antiviral Research.
For a full list of Professor Roy publications, please click here -
