Professor Alison Elliott

Alison Elliott is a physician, specialising in infectious diseases and tropical medical research.  After a degree in Natural Sciences and medical training in the UK she went to Zambia in 1988, and undertook early studies on the interaction between tuberculosis and HIV infection.  Between 1992 and 1995 she undertook an infectious diseases fellowship in the USA, with research on the immunology of tuberculosis at the National Jewish Center in Denver, Colorado.  Since 1996 she has been working in Uganda, supported by Wellcome Trust funding, at the Medical Research Council Unit at the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), where she is head of the Co-infection Studies Programme.

Alison's research interests focus on the immuno-modulating effects of chronic infections. After early studies on HIV and tuberculosis she developed an interest in the immuno-modulating effects of helminths.  Current research particularly addresses the effects of maternal helminth infection, and helminth infections in young children, on outcomes in childhood.  In addition, she is leading a cluster-randomised trial among fishing villages in the islands of Lake Victoria, Uganda, investigating the effects of standard, versus intenstive, intervention against helminth infections on responses to vaccines, to microbial pathogens and to allergens.