Ravi Gupta has been Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases since 2019. Having completed his medical undergraduate studies at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, he pursued a Masters in Public Health at Harvard as a Fulbright scholar. Upon return he trained in infectious diseases in Oxford and London (UCLH, Hospital for Tropical Diseases) and completed his PhD at UCL on lentiviral evasion of antiretrovirals and innate immune responses. Gupta has worked on HIV drug resistance both at molecular and population levels, and his work led to change in WHO treatment guidelines for HIV. He led the study demonstrating HIV eradication in the ‘London Patient’ – the world’s second recorded cure in history. He more recently reported how whole virus genome sequencing can inform clustering analysis and identify risk groups for interventions and also has an interest in CNS reservoirs of HIV. During the COVID-19 pandemic Gupta deployed his expertise in RNA virus genetics and biology to report that SARS-CoV-2 variants likely arise in immune compromised individuals who are also at greatest risk of severe disease. Gupta reported the first real world data on vaccine escape responses towards new variants of concern, defined the replication advantage of the Delta variant, and the tropism shift of Omicron. In addition his group has defined mechanisms behind poorer vaccine responses in vulnerable populations as well as imprinted immunity. Gupta has advised the UK government on COVID-19 through SAGE and NERVTAG. In 2020 appeared in the list of 100 most influential people by TIME; in 2022, 2023 and 2024 Gupta featured in the Clarivate list of the world’s most highly cited scientists. He became a fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences in 2021. In 2023 he received the Translational Microbiology prize from the UK Microbiology Society and in 2024 he was a finalist in the MRC Impact Prize for open science. He was invited to deliver the prestigious JD Bernal Prize Lecture in 2024.
