Shannah Secret
(Née Gates) Postdoctoral researcher
Shannah is a post-doctoral scientist in the the Blood and Transplant Research Unit- Genomics to Enhance Microbiology Screening. She is now senior scientist for theme III of the BTRU-GEMS project which focusses on blood safety. The aim of her research and work is to evaluate the risk of, and provide solutions for, the transmission of potentially detrimental microbes in donated blood. She is involved in a variety of projects looking into current and future infectious threats to blood safety. These include studies on Herpesviruses, Hepatitis B and E viruses and emerging arboviral infections.
She got her PhD in Molecular Biology from Royal Holloway, University of London. Since then, she worked at UKHSA, Porton Down, in the High Containment Microbiology team as a molecular virologist. She was then scientific lead in the Covid testing department at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital.