2025 highlights from Edinburgh Infectious Diseases

On Friday May 16, we held our annual Symposium at the Royal College of Physicians.

We were grateful to welcome Professor Andy Waters from the University of Glasgow to deliver the Ker Memorial Lecture: Malaria parasite transmission: towards the end of the beginning. Professor Waters discussed his career perspectives on molecular basis of malaria parasite transmission.

In addition, we heard from Dr Catherine Oke (Reece Lab, School of Biological Sciences) who was awarded the Ker Memorial Prize, which is given annually to the student submitting the best PhD thesis in infectious diseases. Dr Oke discussed the evolutionary ecology of vector-parasite interactions.

We also heard from an array of excellent Edinburgh speakers on a diverse range of topics from sheep scab to Trypanosome infections in zebrafish to sleeper framework protocol for emerging epidemics and pandemics.

Additionally, 6 early-career researchers presented short talks ranging from eco-immunology to urinary tract infections to environmental land management schemes and infectious disease risks.

See below for the full schedule and talk titles.

Thank you to all who attended this event and stay tuned for news about the 2026 Symposium!

To mark World Aids Day on December 1, we invited Graham Hart, Professor of Sexual Health at UCL to deliver our annual Winter Lecture.

Professor Hart gave a deeply personal and informative talk, drawing on his 40+ years of experience working to study and tackle the HIV epidemic. Fragments of a Life in HIV Research.

We were especially delighted to welcome a wide audience of University staff and students, colleagues from Waverley Care as well as pupils from high schools in Edinburgh and across the central belt.

Thanks to a generous philanthropic donation, the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine is offering four fully-funded PhD studentships to UK students, available from September 2026 to explore the role of infectious agents in chronic disease.

The projects being offered for this studentship are fundamentally collaborative, and bring together two researchers with different approaches, to answer questions in a transdisciplinary way.

To launch these PhD studentships, a workshop was held in November 2025 which highlighted the collaborative work being done in Edinburgh around the topic of infectious agents in chronic disease.

The event was a huge success and paved the way for the beginning of the programme in September of this year.

In February 2025, researchers joined the workshop from schools and centres across the University of Edinburgh – Biological Sciences, Geosciences, the Roslin Institute, Health in Social Science and the Vet School – and the Moredun Research Institute.  

2025 brought significant success within our researcher community. Although not an exhaustive list, below are some of our researcher achievements from 2025.

Researchers from the Reece Lab win prestigious Tam Dalyell prize for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science

Professor Amy Buck elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for her work pioneering RNA biology

BBSRC grant fuels research to unlock the genetics of disease spread

2025 Ker Memorial Prize awarded to Catherine Oke for work on vector-parasite interactions

University of Edinburgh awarded £2.13 million to tackle devastating parasitic disease in Uganda.

Professors Melita Gordon and Rob Semple elected as fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Professor Rowland Kao, an expert in infectious diseases in animals, made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the King’s Birthday Honours

Professor Kenny Baillie has been awarded an Honorary Membership of The Intensive Care Society

Professor Gary Entrican receives Distinguished Veterinary Immunologist Award.

Moredun awarded funding to help tackle major tick-borne disease in sheep.

The monthly Research Focus was a big highlight of 2025.

Research Focus pulled together papers from across the network every month and invited input from researchers to create a regular digest of interesting, innvoative and diverse articles within the infection sphere.

These will continue into 2026 and if you have a paper you wish to be featured, do not hesitate to get in touch.

18-24 November every year marks World AMR Awareness Week, it is a global campaign to raise awareness and increase understanding of AMR and to promote global action to tackle the emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens.

This year Edinburgh Infectious Diseases highlighted work happening in and around the University of Edinburgh to address AMR.

Research Focus: World AMR Awareness Week

Looking to 2026, we already have a packed schedule of events.

First up, on Wednesday 11 March 2026, we are hosting a joint event with One Health Genomics Edinburgh which will explore new developments in sequencing approaches and their application for infection research. 

Second, on Wednesday 27 May 2026 we will be holding our 15th Annual Symposium at Edinburgh Future's Institute. 

We are excited to welcome Professor Emma Thomson, Director of the Centre for Virus Research at the University of Glasgow, to deliver the keynote Ker Memorial Lecture.

Our website will be kept up to date with information about our upcoming events.

Edinburgh Infectious Diseases website

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