Dr. Debby van Riel

Debby van Riel is an Associate Professor at the Department of Viroscience, Erasmus MC, The Netherlands. After obtaining her MSc at the John Moores University in England, she obtained her PhD in 2010 for studying the cell tropism of influenza viruses. In the last 10 years she and her team have been studying the pathogenesis of respiratory virus infections (influenza A viruses, EV-D68 and SARS-CoV-2), with a focus on extra-respiratory complications. These studies have revealed important new insights into the mechanism of systemic virus dissemination, systemic inflammatory responses, and the development of central nervous system complications. Her work has been published in high ranked journals including Science, Lancet, NEJM, Nature Materials, Trends in Neurosciences and Plos Pathogens and she received multiple prestigious personal grants (a.o. Veni, Vidi, Aspasia, EUR fellowship, Erasmus MC fellowships) and prizes (ESWI award, Beijerinck Premium).