Ravi Gupta
Professor Ravi Gupta is a member of faculty at Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa since its inauguration, and professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge. He has had continuous Wellcome funding as a Fellow since 2007 and is currently a Wellcome Senior Fellow. His work spans the study of HIV reservoirs in the central nervous system and drug resistant HIV-1. His group’s work on HIV reservoirs in myeloid cells such as macrophages has led to fundamental insights into cell cycle regulation in macrophages. More recently, the Gupta lab pivoted towards SARS-CoV-2 and this is a major focus, for example in the evolutionary biology of new variants, as well as study of chronic infection and spike protein biology. He also made major contributions to rapid diagnostics early in the pandemic.
Get in touch with Ravi via ravi.gupta@ahri.org
Click here for a full list of publications.
Gupta Group
The Gupta Group has teams at both Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa, and at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Prof Ravi Gupta has had continuous Wellcome funding as a Fellow since 2007, and most recently secured a Wellcome Senior Fellowship in 2016 to study the biological properties of drug resistant viruses in South Africa, including acquisition of increased replication fitness and cellular tropism changes as part of evolutionary adaptation to drug pressure. Africa Health Research Institute represents an ideal environment in which to study drug resistant HIV-1, given the large numbers of treated patients and the fact that 10% or more patients experience treatment failure. This project brings together the multiple strands of his ongoing research to address critically important consequences of global access to antiretroviral therapy. Future plans include work on the role of myeloid cells in HIV associated brain disease during antiretroviral therapy, paving the way to study drug resistant reservoirs in the brain.
Meet the Team
Dami Collier
Collaborating research fellow
Dami is a physician specialising in infectious diseases and a Wellcome Clinical PhD student at University College London. At AHRI Dami facilitates the HERB (HIV escape and resistance in the brain) study, which aims to investigate the occurrence of independent replication of HIV in the brain of South African patients with neurocognitive impairment and to study the evolution of drug resistance in these compartmentalised viruses.
Selected Recent Publications
Meng, Bo, et al . Altered TMPRSS2 Usage by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Impacts Infectivity and Fusogenicity. Nature, vol. 603, no. 7902, Mar. 2022, pp. 706–14.
Mlcochova, Petra, et al. SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta Variant Replication and Immune Evasion. Nature, vol. 599, no. 7883, Nov. 2021, pp. 114–19.
Collier, Dami A., et al. Age-Related Immune Response Heterogeneity to SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine BNT162b2. Nature, vol. 596, no. 7872, Aug. 2021, pp. 417–22.
The CITIID-NIHR BioResource COVID-19 Collaboration, et al. Sensitivity of SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 to MRNA Vaccine-Elicited Antibodies. Nature, vol. 593, no. 7857, May 2021, pp. 136–41.
The CITIID-NIHR BioResource COVID-19 Collaboration, et al. SARS-CoV-2 Evolution during Treatment of Chronic Infection. Nature, vol. 592, no. 7853, Apr. 2021, pp. 277–82.
Siedner, Mark J., et al. Reduced Efficacy of HIV-1 Integrase Inhibitors in Patients with Drug Resistance Mutations in Reverse Transcriptase. Nature Communications, vol. 11, no. 1, Dec. 2020, p. 5922.
Gupta-Wright, Ankur, et al. Virological Failure, HIV-1 Drug Resistance, and Early Mortality in Adults Admitted to Hospital in Malawi: An Observational Cohort Study. The Lancet HIV, vol. 7, no. 9, Sept. 2020, pp. e620–28.
Datir, Rawlings, et al. In Vivo Emergence of a Novel Protease Inhibitor Resistance Signature in HIV-1 Matrix. MBio, edited by Dimitrios Paraskevis, vol. 11, no. 6, Dec. 2020, pp. e02036-20.
Mlcochova P, Sutherland KA, Watters SA, Bertoli C, de Bruin RAM, Rehwinkel J, Neil SJ, Lenzi GM, Kim B, Khwaja A, Gage MC, Georgiou C, Chittka A, Yona S, Noursadeghi M, Towers GJ, Gupta RK. (2017). A G1–like state allows HIV–1 to bypass SAMHD1 restriction in macrophages. EMBO J 2017; Mar 1;36(5):604-616.
Collier DA, Iwuji C, Derache A, de Oliveira T, Okesola N, Calmy A, Dabis F, Pillay D, Gupta RK for the ANRS 12249 TasP Study Group. (2017). Virological Outcomes of second–line protease inhibitor based treatment for HIV– 1 in a high prevalence rural South African setting – a competing risk prospective cohort analysis. Clinical Infectious Diseases; doi: 10.1093/cid/cix015; E pub ahead of print.
Sutherland KA, Collier DA, Claiborne DT, Prince JL, Deymier MJ, Goldstein RA, Hunter E, Gupta RK. (2016). Wide variation in susceptibility of HIV–1 subtype C Isolates to protease inhibitors and association with in vitro replication efficiency. Scientific Reports; 6: 38153 doi: 10.1038/srep38153 .
Gregson J, Kaleebu P, Marconi VC, van Vuuren C, Ndembi N, Hamers RL, Kanki P, Hoffmann CJ, Lockman S, Pillay D, de Oliveira T, Clumeck N, Hunt G, Kerschberger B, Shafer RW, Yang C, Raizes E, Kantor R, Gupta RK. (2017). Occult drug resistance to thymidine analogues and multidrug resistant HIV–1 following failure of first line tenofovir–based antiretroviral regimens in sub Saharan Africa: a retrospective multi–centre cohort study. Lancet Infect Dis Epub ahead of print: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1473– 3099(16)30469– 8.
Gregson J, Tang M, Ndembi N, Hamers RL, Rhee SY, Marconi VC, Diero L, Brooks K, Theys, K, Rinke de Wit TF, Arruda M, Garcia F, Monge S, Günthard, HF, Hoffmann, CJ, Kanki PJ, Kumarasamy, N, Kerschberger B, Mor O, Charpentier C, Todesco E, Rokx C, Gras L, Halvas EK, Sunpath H, Di Carlo D, Antinori A, Andreoni M, Latini A, Mussini C, Aghokeng A, Sonnerborg A, Ujjwal Neogi U, Fessel WJ, Agolory S, Yang C, Blanco JL, Juma JM, Smit, E, Schmidt, D, Watera C, Asio J, Kirungi W, Tostevin A, El– Hay T, Clumeck N, Goedhals D; van Vuuren C, Bester PA, Sabin C, Mukui I, Santoro MM, Perno CF, Hunt G, Morris L, Camacho R, de Oliveira T, Pillay D, Schulter E, Akio Murakami– Ogasawara A, Reyes– Terán G, Romero K, Avila– Rios S, Sirivichayakul, S, Ruxrungtham K, Mekprasan S, Dunn, D, Kaleebu, P, Raizes E, Kantor R, Shafer RW, Gupta RK on behalf of the TenoRes study group. (2016). Global epidemiology of drug resistance following failure of WHO recommended first line regimens for adult HIV–1 infection – a multi–centre retrospective cohort study. Lancet Infect Dis 2016. May;16(5):565– 75.