John Mccauley

Dr John McCauley has, since 2009, been Director of the Worldwide Influenza Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London (formerly the World Influenza Centre at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), from 1947 to 2015), one of six WHO Collaborating Centres for Influenza which form part of the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS). Much of the work of the Centre is directed to monitoring changes in the characteristics of viruses, received from WHO National Influenza Centres from across the globe, to collaborate on the development of WHO recommendations for the composition of seasonal influenza vaccines and for candidate vaccine viruses against novel zoonotic influenza viruses, as part of pandemic preparedness.

John’s broad research interests in influenza are reflected in the many recent publications he has co-authored. These focus, for example, on the determinants of host range restriction of avian and swine influenza viruses that limit their ability to replicate in human cells, and the impact of changes in receptor binding on antigenic drift of human influenza viruses.