Claire Smith is a Professor of Respiratory Infection and Epithelial Biology at University College London. She is internationally recognised for her work on primary human epithelial models of respiratory virus infection, having developed advanced air–liquid interface and organoid culture systems used to study RSV, influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and enteroviruses and to test antiviral efficacy in human-relevant models. She leads the Living Airway Biobank at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, which supports translational respiratory-virus research across the institution and internationally, and her recent publications include studies in Nature Communications and Nature Microbiology.
In DETECTIVE she supervises DC14 on repurposing antivirals for severe viral infections in immunocompromised children, combining patient-derived organoid models with an analysis of the European regulatory pathway for clinical translation. She hosts DC3 during their secondment at UCL and acts as the network’s Communication Manager. At UCL she also directs the MRes in Child Health and is an experienced supervisor of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers.