Jyothi Purushotham

I am a fourth-year NIH Oxford-Cambridge PhD Scholar jointly supervised by Professors Sarah Gilbert and Teresa Lambe at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford and Dr. Vincent Munster at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH.

At the Jenner Institute, I designed new ChAdOx1-vectored vaccines for Lassa fever and performed comparative immunogenicity evaluations in mice. I also explored combinatorial routes of administration and prime-target delivery approaches for ChAdOx1 MERS, with the aim of maximizing tissue-resident memory T cell responses in the lung.  

I am currently based at the NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratories, where I am now focusing on profiling immune responses to vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 infection in rhesus macaques. I am also carrying out immune correlates of protection studies in the hACE2 mouse model of SARS-CoV-2 infection. 

My interests lie at the intersection of global health and translational science. Prior to my doctoral studies, I completed an MSc in International Health & Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford. My background includes a mix of biomedical and population health research experiences. These include time spent as a Fulbright Scholar investigating corneal stem cell transplant therapies and performing rural epidemiologic surveys of corneal disease in Hyderabad, India and designing mixed-methods studies to evaluate access to diabetes-management tools across different population demographics in the US.