Professor Nick Thomson

Shifting focus from common environmental sources for cholera to highlight the role of human-to-human transmission, Nick's research opens new opportunities for intervention, transmission blocking, and cholera 'track and trace' tools.

His laboratory has a global influence on policy, collaborating with the Pan-American Health Organization and the WHO Global Taskforce for Cholera Control (GTFCC). Nick's role in the GTFCC working groups and Independent Review Panel for National Cholera Plans for Control or Elimination (NCPs) shapes current and future cholera control strategies.

Beyond Cholera, his work on Shigella infections with macrolide resistance informed the universally adopted UK guidelines for managing 'Men who have Sex with Men' with sexually transmissible enteritis and proctitis symptoms.

Deeply committed to improving global health, Nick builds long-term global partnerships, promotes equitable data use and sharing, and increases research capacity in low and middle income countries. 

During the pandemic he helped establish genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Bangladesh, combining genome data with population mobility data from social media and mobile phone operators. This approach, a world first, was used by policymakers to direct control strategies and helped deliver more powerful genomic tools for disease control.