Thushan de Silva is Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Sheffield. His work spans basic research in immunology, microbiology and molecular virology, impactful clinical research and global public health studies. Through his joint appointment at the MRC Laboratories in The Gambia, he led important studies to examine factors leading to protective immunity, transmission and potential vaccine efficacy across a number of infections of global importance, including viruses influenza, HIV, and SARS-CoV-2, and more recently Streptococcus pyogenes. In Sheffield, his work has focused on establishing pipelines for whole genome and metagenomic sequencing for pathogen detection, which is now being integrated into NHS Clinical Microbiology services across South Yorkshire.