Linda Klavinskis

Linda S. Klavinskis, PhD, is Professor of Viral Immunology at King’s College London where her laboratory focuses on immunity to vaccination and virus infection. The goal is to understand and harness cross talk between dendritic cells and T cells, and use this knowledge to develop new and more effective vaccines. This work has led to deciphering an alternative mode of antigen presentation, termed ‘cross-dressing’ and unravelling mechanisms contributing to epitope selection and CD8 T-cell immunodominance. At the translational level, her lab has made contributions to the development of gene delivery systems for DNA and viral-mediated vaccination. More, recently she made inroads in understanding the biology of skin immunisation and developed a microneedle vaccine delivery platform. This has led to the new finding that skin immunisation activates cross talk with innate cells in epithelial barrier tissues to recruit effector CD8+ T-cells and can establish immune surveillance at the barrier tissues. During the COVID-19 pandemic her lab has focused on the role of innate immunity in the hyperinflammatory response in severe COVID-19 and applying therapeutic approaches. Her laboratory has co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications.

Professor Klavinskis currently serves as a member of the UK Medical Research Council’s Infection and Immunity Board. She also serves as Associate Editor of Frontiers in Mucosal Immunology and as an Editor of Frontiers in HIV and AIDS. She has served as President of the ‘Medical Research Club’, a prestigious London based biomedical society established 1891 with a focus in infection and immunity. She contributes to national and international peer review in vaccine sciences and as a consultant in industry. She has expertise in executive and senior management positions, including most recently as Vice Dean for Postgraduate Research (Life Sciences and Medicine) at King’s College London. She is a Fellow of the International Society for Vaccines and was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists.

Linda Klavinskis has been an active member of the International Society for Vaccines since 2015 and is an elected ISV Fellow. Her service to the ISV includes, membership of the Executive Board since 2018 (where she has championed promoting opportunities for women and junior/early career researcher members in ISV activities); Secretary for the 2020-2021 term; and is President-elect for the 2022-2023 term.

She served as Co-Chair of the 2019 ISV Annual Congress in Ghent, playing a key role in identifying the Scientific Committee (SC) and planning the scientific program with the SC and also introduced further opportunities for junior researchers e.g. the “Bright Sparks in Vaccinology’ junior PI session and a career focus event illustrating opportunities beyond the purely academic career path.  During the COVID-19 pandemic she served as Co-chair for the ISV COVID-19 Vaccine Congress mini-series (2020 -2021). With Drs Shan Lu and Margaret Liu she wrote an article published in Emerging Microbes and Infections, which described the leadership role of the ISV in providing the global community with balanced presentations of progress and challenges in COVID-19 vaccine development.

Over the past 5 years she has annually contributed to the ISV as a workshop chair and as a plenary/workshop speaker. She regularly contributes to the ISV newsletters to publicise and feedback on the ISV’s work. She brings a trans European and North American perspective to the Society from her training and extensive research experience in several labs on these continents.