Our People
Prof Astrid Iversen
Fellow, Ordinary Fellow
Professor of Virology and Immunology
Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences
MD, PhD (Copenhagen)
Astrid Iversen is a Professor of Virology and Immunology in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine and has worked in Oxford for almost 18 years. Astrid is half Norwegian, half Danish and was born in Denmark. She studied medicine and completed her PhD studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Centre for AIDS Research at Stanford University, California, USA, and has been a Senior Clinical Scientist in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Rigshospitalet (The National University Hospital) in Copenhagen. Her primary research interests are in the pathogenesis of HIV-1 infection, particularly the interplay between host immune responses and viral evolution, and understanding the evolutionary adaptations in HIV-1 that lead to viral persistence. Such adaptive patterns are relevant for many other viruses and might result in new immunotherapeutic and vaccine strategies. Understanding the host-virus interplay is likely crucial for improving the treatment of, e.g., reactivated human polyomavirus JC (JCV) in HIV-infected patients, as a robust JCV-specific T cell response is associated with survival. Likewise, it is likely that a greater knowledge of viral adaptation mechanisms to escape the human immune response will prove valuable in understanding the evolution of novel acute viruses, e.g. SARS-CoV-2. She has supervised several undergraduate and graduate students and has four children at university.
For more information and a list of publications visit: https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/team/astrid-iversen.