Dr Nazia Thakur

Nazia is a post-doctoral researcher working in the Viral Glycoproteins at The Pirbright Institute. She completed her undergraduate degree in Biomedical Sciences and a MSc in Immunology and Immunotherapy, both from The University of Birmingham. She joined The Pirbright Institute in 2018 as a research assistant and subsequently obtained her DPhil from The University of Oxford on the Interdisciplinary Bioscience DTP in 2025, with The Pirbright Institute as her host research institute. 

Nazia's research interests focus on examining and characterising the role of cross-protective antibodies against emerging viruses, with a focus on Henipaviruses and Sarbecoviruses. She has presented this research as a speaker at several conferences, including The Microbiology Society Annual Conference, Negative Strand RNA Virus Meeting, Canadian Society of Virology Symposium, and the UK International Coronavirus Network (UK-ICN) Annual General Meeting.  
Nazia is also interested in developing novel low-biocontainment assays to screen for these antibodies, which she has already successfully done for Henipaviruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), Lassa virus, alphacoronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1 and other betacoronaviruses. She has subsequently trained and supervised over 20 visiting scientists and students in the last 7 years to perform these assays and establish them in their own labs.

Nazia has also been actively involved in The Pirbright Institute's COVID-19 research efforts, which has largely been focused on assessing the antigenicity and host range of SARS-CoV-2 variants. Since 2019, Nazia’s research contributions have resulted in publications in over 30 manuscripts, including publications in Nature Microbiology, PLoS Biology, Journal of General Virology and Frontiers in Immunology.