Summary
Joyce is a Research Associate within the Vaccine Epidemiology Research Group (VERG) in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology. Her work focuses on improving molecular detection assays and next-generation sequencing approaches for poliovirus detection in clinical and environmental samples.
Previously she worked as a Senior Scientist at the Integrated COVID Hub North East and as a Project Scientist at Public Health England within the Enteric Virus Unit.
Joyce participated as an Early Stage Researcher in the EU-Funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action training network HONOURs (grant agreement number 721367) consisting of 10 high profile universities, research institutions and companies across Europe. As part of the HONOURs training, she completed her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Bern, Switzerland where her work focused on the identification and characterisation of emerging viruses from clinical and environmental samples i.e. human adenoviruses isolated from patients in Bern, Switzerland, over a 20 year period, and arboviruses (TBEV, DENV, CHIKV and ZIKV) of public health concern found in ticks and mosquitoes. She also obtained an MSc in Molecular Biology of Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a BSc in Biomedical Sciences.
Publications
Journals
Akello J, Bujaki E, Shaw A, et al., 2023, Comparison of eleven RNA extraction methods for poliovirus direct molecular detection in stool samples, Microbiology Spectrum, Vol:11, ISSN:2165-0497, Pages:1-13
Klapsa D, Wilton T, Zealand A, et al., 2022, Sustained detection of type 2 poliovirus in London sewage between February and July, 2022, by enhanced environmental surveillance, The Lancet, Vol:400, ISSN:0140-6736, Pages:1531-1538
Elviss NC, Allen DJ, Kelly D, et al., 2022, Norovirus attribution study: Detection of norovirus from the commercial food preparation environment in outbreak and non-outbreak premises, Journal of Applied Microbiology, Vol:133, ISSN:1364-5072, Pages:3391-3403
Kelly D, Allen DJ, Akello JO, et al., 2022, A Comparison of Two Methods for Detection of Norovirus RNA in Environmental Swab Samples, Applied Microbiology, Vol:2, Pages:460-469
Akello JO, Kamgang R, Barbani MT, et al., 2021, Genomic analyses of human adenoviruses unravel novel recombinant genotypes associated with severe infections in pediatric patients, Scientific Reports, Vol:11, ISSN:2045-2322, Pages:1-10