We would like to congratulate ISID Executive Committee member, Neelika Malavige, on her new role at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) as their new Head of Dengue Global Programme and Scientific Affairs, India. She is a renowned leader and expert in the field of dengue. Congratulations, Neelika!

Neelika Malavige is a physician scientist, whose main focus has been immunity to viral infections. She is a Professor and head of the Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine, the Director of the Centre for Dengue Research, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka and an academic visitor at the MRC Human Immunology Unit, University of Oxford. She is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London and a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, UK. After obtaining her doctorate from University of Oxford in 2008, she returned to Sri Lanka to embark on research related to the immunopathogenesis of dengue.

She has published extensively on vascular leak in dengue, correlates of protection and T cells in dengue infection. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Neelika has also been working on immune responses to SARS-CoV2, sequence analysis and is currently serving on many national committees related COVID-19 response in Sri Lanka.