Collaboration Award 2020

Professor Michael Weekes and Dr Stephen Baker
Cambridge Institute for Medical Research/Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease
School of Clinical Medicine

The Vice-Chancellor's Awards
^{_{for Research Impact and Engagement}}

About the researchers

^{Michael Weekes is Professor of Viral Immunology at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He specialises in researching the Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). His aim is to understand how human cytomegalovirus and other intracellular pathogens evade innate immunity.}

^{Stephen Baker is a microbiologist and head of The Baker Lab at The Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID) and Director of Research for Global Health in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on infectious diseases, specifically enteric bacteria, in Low- and Middle-Income Countries and antimicrobial resistance.}

The Vice-Chancellor's Awards
_{for Research Impact and Engagement}

About the researcher

Michael Weekes is Professor of Viral Immunology at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He specialises in researching the Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). His aim is to understand how human cytomegalovirus and other intracellular pathogens evade innate immunity.

Stephen Baker is a microbiologist and Head of The Baker Lab at The Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID) and ^{Director of Research for Global Health} in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on infectious diseases, specifically enteric bacteria, in Low-and Middle-Income Countries and antimicrobial resistance.

Professor Michael Weekes and a nurse at the University COVID-19 testing pod

With a large team of people from a wide diversity of disciplines, we set out to devise our own testing programme for hospital staff. One of my colleagues, Stephen Baker, converted his whole University lab into a COVID testing facility. I got moving with a team setting up the logistics of sampling.

Professor Michael Weekes

It was an enormous undertaking under challenging conditions, but we rallied the lab and had a validated diagnostic and working sample flow within a couple of weeks. When we were ready we approached the hospital to see how the infrastructure could be the most helpful.

Dr Stephen Baker

What is the research?

A comprehensive COVID-19 screening programme for Cambridge University Hospitals healthcare workers, Cambridge University staff and students

Professor Mike Weekes and Dr Stephen Baker established a comprehensive rapid turn-around COVID-19 testing platform. This setup was developed quickly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as insufficient national capacity existed to test Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) staff.

The project hinged on the partnership between Stephen and Mike. Above and beyond their job descriptions and expected duties they initiated a vital collaboration to identify and isolate individuals with COVID-19.

Both took on complementary but distinct roles. Stephen converted part of his research laboratory to a COVID-19 testing facility, setting up the infrastructure, equipment, and training of key people to establish a reliable assay. His team ensured the smooth day-to-day running, and rigorous quality control that is a prerequisite for the rapid establishment of a new testing facility.

Mike set up a diverse team within CUH that established the logistics of COVID-19 sampling, opened two ‘pods’ for sample collection at CUH and on Fen Causeway in Cambridge. In an extraordinarily productive collaboration, their lab-based and clinical teams undertook, performed, and reported results back to subjects within 24 hours of swabbing.

Of more than 1,000 staff members screened at work during April 2020, 3% tested positive for COVID-19, triggering the immediate isolation of staff and screening of their contacts, limiting viral transmission around CUH.

Mike and Stephen expanded their screening programme, preventing CUH becoming a ‘hub’ of COVID-19 transmission, making CUH a safe working environment and enabling testing of symptomatic staff and students from Cambridge University.

Stephen and Mike’s findings were influential when developing national policy. Their work led to the publication of four papers and extensive national press coverage.

At a local level Stephen and Mike’s testing facility made CUH safer by providing a resource that was so very crucial, but was not otherwise available to staff at the time. Their hard work was instrumental in raising morale of all staff at CUH and helped generate a working environment that was safe for both staff and patients.