With kind support from the Medawar family, the Oxford Immunology Network has established a new Peter Medawar Prize for Immunology. This will be awarded annually to recognise an Oxford researcher who has made an outstanding contribution to immunology, both through their scientific excellence and through their broader contributions to the academic community.
The 2024 prize was awarded to Dr Yiqi Zhao (Dunn School) for her outstanding contribution to understanding innate immunity and viral evasion, and wider contributions to the immunology community. Viruses and their hosts are locked in an evolutionary arms race, as viruses evolve new ways to evade a host’s immune response. In an article in Nature, Dr Zhao demonstrated the complex mechanisms through which a human protein called TRIM5α (which is known to have antiviral effects against some RNA viruses including HIV) also combats poxviruses like monkeypox and variola virus, the cause of smallpox. In a second study in Cell Reports, together with Dr Yongxu Lu, Dr Zhao showed that an enzyme called HDAC5 also has a role in activating innate immunity and has anti-poxvirus effects. Understanding how TRIM5α and HDAC5 work against poxviruses (and the mechanisms that these viruses have evolved in response) should help researchers to identify better treatments for poxviruses to avoid drug resistance.
Dr Zhao has also contributed to the immunology community in several ways through research collaborations with other groups, student supervision, and contribution to seminars.