I am the PI of the group and the supervisor for every member of the team. I am a molecular biologist by training, focused on the interactions between viral pathogens and the machinery of the host cell, and fascinated by the diversity of living systems and how they evolve. My route here ran from a molecular biology degree at Queen's, through a PhD on mumps virus, to postdoctoral work on innate immunity to hepatitis C in Glasgow, and back to Belfast for the COVID-19 response. I now lead an interdisciplinary team working on re-emerging respiratory-borne viruses and arboviruses, across host-pathogen immunity, viral evolution and monitoring, and the environmental drivers of infection.

I joined the Bamford Lab in November 2026 as a Research Fellow working on the EnviroFlu project. I recently completed my PhD at Queen's University Belfast, focusing on the environmental surveillance of livestock parasites using molecular techniques, including ddPCR and Illumina sequencing. I now bring that environmental surveillance approach to avian influenza, sampling the freshwater sites that wild migratory waterbirds use.

Aaron works on wastewater-based genomic surveillance of influenza A viruses, characterising the diversity of human and avian strains circulating in the environment as an early-warning tool for emerging threats. (Personal background and photo to follow.)

Katie investigates the type III interferon response, mapping the antiviral programmes that human interferon lambdas switch on to defend cells against viral infection. (Personal background and photo to follow.)

Hi, I'm Jiaying Gu, a PhD student in the OneZoo Centre for Doctoral Training at Queen's University Belfast, based in the Bamford AVI Lab. I studied Health Inspection and Quarantine at Guangdong Medical University before working for four years in the Microbiology Laboratory at the Shenzhen Yantian District Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2023, I completed a Master of Public Health at the University of Aberdeen. My PhD research examines how environmental chemical mixtures may alter immune responses and infectious disease risk in mammals. As part of a Cardiff University otter project, I investigate the viruses carried by wild otters and explore how pollution may influence host health and emerging zoonotic risks.

Hi, I'm Banbha, a PhD student in the Bamford Antiviral Immunity Lab. My research focuses on the surveillance and characterisation of tick-borne viruses in sheep and deer in Northern Ireland, and I work closely with my collaborators in the mammalian virology department at AFBI. I completed my undergraduate degree at Queen's University Belfast, where I obtained a first in MSci Biochemistry with Professional Studies. My previous research explored the part that co-evolution plays in the function of bat interferon receptors, with a focus on Pteropus alecto, the black flying fox. That began as an honours project in this lab and was extended for my integrated masters.

Hi, I'm James, a second-year PhD student working where evolutionary biology, structural biology and artificial intelligence meet.

Cytokines are the proteins cells use to talk to one another, and that conversation sits at the centre of three diseases at once: viruses counterfeit cytokines to switch the immune system off, inherited faults in the same receptors cause immunodeficiency and chronic inflammation, and tumours lose them to escape immune control. The same handful of amino acids tends to matter in all three.

My PhD, EVOLVE-AI, asks which individual residues carry that function. AI protein language models learn what a protein can tolerate from sequence alone, but they are trained on databases that cover some branches of life far better than others. So I set them against the record of natural selection across thousands of vertebrate genomes, asking where the model goes blind and whether that blindness can be predicted. The aim is a map of the positions worth acting on: the sites viruses exploit, the ones that drive disease when they go wrong, and the ones worth engineering into better therapeutics.

Alongside the PhD I write open-source scientific software, including SCEPTR, a tool for characterising transcriptomes built at the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It lives on my GitHub.

I'm Mollie, and my PhD explores the largely underappreciated relationship between nematodes and viruses, using the pig parasite Ascaris suum as my model organism. Nematodes are among the most abundant parasites on Earth, yet remarkably little is known about the viruses that infect them, or how those viruses might in turn shape the health of the animals the nematodes live in. I came to this from Liverpool, where I studied Biological Sciences as an integrated master's, by way of research placements in cancer immunology and in tropical medicine in Thailand.

Hi, I'm Aimee Martin, 22 years old, from Coagh in Co. Tyrone, and I'm currently undertaking a PhD focused on developing a broadly reactive vaccine against swine influenza A virus. My research involves influenza genomics, antigen optimisation, and evaluating cross-protective immune responses against diverse viral lineages. I'm passionate about improving animal health and contributing to innovative approaches for controlling infectious diseases in livestock.

Hi, I'm Estelle! I'm French and lived internationally before moving to Aberdeen, Scotland to pursue my BSc in Biology. Following this, I moved to Belfast and obtained my MSc in One Health Parasitology and Infection Biology. My PhD focuses on coinfections and the interactions between viruses and microbes at a molecular and cellular level, with particular emphasis on influenza in wild birds and livestock.

Hi, I'm Lauren Martin, a 22-year-old PhD researcher from the small town of Coagh in Northern Ireland. My research focuses on Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) and understanding why some pigs and farms are more resilient to infection than others. Using microbiome, health and production data from commercial farms, I hope to uncover microbial and host factors that can improve pig health, welfare and productivity.

Hi, my name is Patrick Cunningham. I am a local Queen's student, living in Northern Ireland, and I completed both my biochemistry undergraduate degree and my MSci here. I am currently in the first year of my PhD, working to improve our understanding of cyanophage and cyanobacteria interactions and how we sample them, with the aim of using them as a treatment for the seasonal harmful algal blooms affecting Lough Neagh.

Profile to follow.

Profile to follow.

I'm Emma, an MSci Microbiology student at the University of Glasgow, currently completing my integrated master's research placement in the Bamford Antiviral Immunity Lab at Queen's. My project focuses on investigating viruses circulating in mosquito populations in Northern Ireland, with a particular focus on arboviruses.

Profile to follow.

Hi, I'm Evinka! Originally from Indonesia, I was born and raised in Qatar before moving to Belfast to study Biological Sciences at Queen's University Belfast. Following a placement year at Pfizer, I'm now in my final year and currently working on EVOLVE-AI, a research project that uses machine learning and evolutionary biology to help engineer broadly acting antivirals.

I'm Run Zhang, originally from Nanjing, and currently studying for a BSc in Biological Sciences at Queen's University Belfast. My research interests are mainly in aquatic and environmental microbiology. I'm currently working on my final-year project investigating how rainwater bacterial microbiota affect the viability of influenza A virus.