Welcome to the Matthews Group

The Matthews Group is funded by the Wellcome Trust to work on a study of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, with a particular focus on populations in southern Africa.

Together with a group of collaborators at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, we are pioneering a new pipeline to generate full length deep HBV sequences, alongside collecting human demographic, clinical and genetic data. The aim of the study is to identify factors that impact on the outcomes of chronic HBV infection, and specifically to characterise the adaptive immune response.

In the long-term, advancing this knowledge will feed into optimising therapy and developing strategies for cure.

Our backgrounds are in HIV immunology, and we also have research interests in other chronic viral infections including CMV, herpes viruses and human parvovirus-4 (PARV4), and virus discovery.

We are interested in data visualisation, which includes promoting Open Access publication, and also designing our own resources for use in primary and secondary school workshops to inspire school students in topics around science and medicine.