Professor Judith Breuer

Professor of Virology

About

Research in the Breuer lab focusses on the application of next generation sequencing and phylogentics to virus diagnostics and discovery.

Research summary

My laboratory has pioneered whole pathogen genome sequencing directly form clinical material using targeted enrichment methods which obviate the need for prior amplification by culture or PCR. We have established the method as an automated high throughput pipeline with associated bioinformatics.

Our research interests include:

1. The evolution of pathogens in the context of disease, drug treatment and vaccination
2. The application of next generation sequencing methodologies to diagnostic microbiology
3. Genomic approaches to host pathogen interactions.

Our current projects include:

1. Genomic approaches to understand the evolution of drug resistance in pathogens and identify the mechanisms of drug action
2. Genomic approaches to understanding the transmission and spread of pathogens
3. Genomic approaches to pathogenesis of infectious diseases.

Selected publications

• Depledge DP, Ouwendijk WJD, Sadaoka T, Braspenning SE, Mori Y, Cohrs RJ, Verjans GMGM, Breuer J. A spliced latency-associated VZV transcript maps antisense to the viral transactivator gene 61. Nat Commun. 2018. 9(1):1167
• Morfopoulou S, Mee ET, Connaughton SM, Brown JR, Gilmour K, Chong WK, Duprex WP, Ferguson D, Hubank M, Hutchinson C, Kaliakatsos M, McQuaid S, Paine S, Plagnol V, Ruis C, Virasami A, Zhan H, Jacques TS, Schepelmann S, Qasim W, Breuer J. Deep sequencing reveals persistence of cell-associated mumps vaccine virus in chronic encephalitis. Acta Neuropathol. 2017. 133(1):139-147
• Sadaoka T, Depledge DP, Rajbhandari L, Venkatesan A, Breuer J, Cohen JI. In vitro system using human neurons demonstrates that varicella-zoster vaccine virus is impaired for reactivation, but not latency. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016. 113(17):E2403-12
• Morfopoulou S, Brown JR, Davies EG, Anderson G, Virasami A, Qasim W, Chong WK, Hubank M, Plagnol V, Desforges M, Jacques TS, Talbot PJ, Breuer J. Human Coronavirus OC43 Associated with Fatal Encephalitis. N Engl J Med. 2016. 375(5):497-8
• Depledge DP, Kundu S, Jensen NJ, Gray ER, Jones M, Steinberg S, Gershon A, Kinchington PR, Schmid DS, Balloux F, Nichols RA, Breuer J. Deep sequencing of viral genomes provides insight into the evolution and pathogenesis of varicella zoster virus and its vaccine in humans. Mol Biol Evol. 2014. 31(2):397-409
• Weinert LA, Depledge DP, Kundu S, Gershon AA, Nichols RA, Balloux F, Welch JJ, Breuer J. Rates of vaccine evolution show strong effects of latency: implications for varicella zoster virus epidemiology. Mol Biol Evol. 2015. 32(4):1020-8
• Jones M, Dry IR, Frampton D, Singh M, Kanda RK, Yee MB, Kellam P, Hollinshead M, Kinchington PR, O'Toole EA, Breuer J. RNA-seq analysis of host and viral gene expression highlights interaction between varicella zoster virus and keratinocyte differentiation. PLoS Pathog. 2014. 10(1):e1003896
• Brown JR, Roy S, Ruis C, Yara Romero E, Shah D, Williams R, Breuer J. Norovirus Whole-Genome Sequencing by SureSelect Target Enrichment: a Robust and Sensitive Method. J Clin Microbiol. 2016. 54:2530-7
• Houldcroft CJ, Beale MA, Breuer J. Clinical and biological insights from viral genome sequencing. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2017.15(3):183-192
• Warren-Gash C, Breuer J. CNS Infections: A new herpes zoster subunit vaccine for older adults. Nat Rev Neurol. 2016. 12(12):682-683.

Contact

Judith Breuer
j.breuer@ucl.ac.uk

UCL Division of Infection and Immunity
Wing 1.3, Cruciform Building
Gower Street
London, WC1E 6BT

ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8246-0534
Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Breuer

Projects

NOROPATROL: Why do Norovirus pandemics occur & how can we control them?

Precision AMR

Human Cytomegalovirus Drug Resistance Genotypic database

Group members

• Dr Camus Nimmo (Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellow)
• Dr Sofia Morfopoulou (Wellcome Research Fellow)
• Dr Jose Afonso Guerra-Assuncao (Research Fellow)
• Dr Sunando Roy (Research Associate)
• Dr Cristina Venturini (Research Associate)
• Dr Helena Tutill (Senior Research Technician)
• Dr Rachel Williams (Project Manager)
• Dr Paola Resende Silva (Research Associate)
• Saadia Rahman (Precision AMR Project Manager)
• Charlotte Williams (Research Assistant)
• Patricia Dyal Bynoe (Research Technician)
• Oscar Charles (PhD Student)
• Juanita Pang (PhD Student)

Funders

• Department of Health & Social Care
• Medical Research Council
• Wellcome Trust
• Worldwide Cancer Research