Earlier this week, The King and Queen welcomed 7,000 representatives from various educational fields to Buckingham Palace, to celebrate individuals from the education and skills sector. Dr Caitlin Thompson and Dr Rachel Byrne, from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, were invited in recognition of their work as early careers researchers.

Caitlin currently holds a strategic post funded by The Pandemic Institute, focusing on diagnostic development for high-risk infectious diseases. She recently created the first antigen-targeting lateral flow test for Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic fever virus and is now expanding her work to include other priority pathogens like Lassa virus and Rift Valley Fever virus—both lacking vaccines or treatments. Rapid diagnostics for these diseases will support early detection and isolation to curb transmission.

Rachel is part of The Pandemic Institute (TPI) Internal Science Advisory Panel and is a lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.  She is the diagnostic and paediatric lead of the $15 million Unitaid funded tuberculosis implementation study: Start4All. Rachel also works within the outbreak intervention group developing novel testing approaches for high consequence infectious diseases, most recently Lassa fever in Sierra Leone.

Both researchers previously received a Student Excellence Award from The Pandemic Institute in recognition of their work and to support their career development. The award provided grants for attending international conferences and accessing world-class training opportunities. With this funding, both researchers travelled to Texas to visit the academic led Containment Level 4 (CL4) laboratory (there are currently no university led CL4 facilities in the UK). The trip also allowed them to enhance collaboration between the two institutes, specifically in research into high consequence pathogens

Caitlin said: “It was a real honour to attend the garden party at Buckingham Palace. The invitation underscores the significant impact of early career researchers in advancing public health and scientific innovation, and the importance of investing in a work force who will develop these innovations and help combat future disease outbreaks.”