Natasha L. Tilston-Lunel, PhD, MSC

I obtained a PhD in Molecular Virology from the University of St Andrews, Scotland under the mentorship of late Prof. Richard M. Elliott. I studied about bunyaviruses in Richard's lab with a primary focus on Oropouche virus. In 2016, I moved to the US for my postdoctoral training with Prof. Paul W. Duprex, first at the NEIDL, Boston University followed by a few years at the Center for Vaccine Research (CVR), University of Pittsburgh. Here, my main focus was investigating the therapeutic use of defective interfering viral particles. Along with the rest of the CVR much of my work from 2020 until mid 2021 has been SARS-CoV-2 related.

In September 2022, the Tilston lab opened at IU with a focus on bunyaviruses and how they cause disease. To learn more check out www.thetilstonlab.org

Tilston-Lunel NL, Welch SR, Nambulli S, de Vries RD, Ho GW, Wentworth DE, Shabman R, Nichol ST, Spiropoulou CF, de Swart RL, Rennick LJ, Duprex WP. Sustained Replication of Synthetic Canine Distemper Virus Defective Genomes In Vitro and In Vivo. mSphere. 2021 Oct 27;6(5):e0053721. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8550193.

Klimstra WB, Tilston-Lunel NL, Nambulli S, Boslett J, McMillen CM, Gilliland T, Dunn MD, Sun C, Wheeler SE, Wells A, Hartman AL, McElroy AK, Reed DS, Rennick LJ, Duprex WP. SARS-CoV-2 growth, furin-cleavage-site adaptation and neutralization using serum from acutely infected hospitalized COVID-19 patients. J Gen Virol. 2020 Nov;101(11):1156-1169. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7879561.

Tilston-Lunel NL, Shi X, Elliott RM, Acrani GO. The Potential for Reassortment between Oropouche and Schmallenberg Orthobunyaviruses. Viruses. 2017 Aug 11;9(8) PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5580477.

Tilston-Lunel NL, Acrani GO, Randall RE, Elliott RM. Generation of Recombinant Oropouche Viruses Lacking the Nonstructural Protein NSm or NSs. J Virol. 2015 Dec 23;90(5):2616-27. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4810690.

Tilston-Lunel NL, Hughes J, Acrani GO, da Silva DE, Azevedo RS, Rodrigues SG, Vasconcelos PF, Nunes MR, Elliott RM. Genetic analysis of members of the species Oropouche virus and identification of a novel M segment sequence. J Gen Virol. 2015 Jul;96(Pt 7):1636-50. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4635451.

Acrani GO*, Tilston-Lunel NL*, Spiegel M, Weidmann M, Dilcher M, Andrade da Silva DE, Nunes MRT, Elliott RM. Establishment of a minigenome system for Oropouche virus reveals the S genome segment to be significantly longer than reported previously. J Gen Virol. 2015 Mar;96(Pt 3):513-523. PubMed PMID: 25491420.

Tilston NL, Eames KT, Paolotti D, Ealden T, Edmunds WJ. (2010). Internet-based surveillance of Influenza-like-illness in the UK during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. BMC Public Health, 10:650. PMID: 20979640

Tilston N, Skelly C., Weinstein P. (2009). Pan-European Chikungunya surveillance: designing risk stratified surveillance zones. Int J Health Geogr, 8:61. PMID: 19878588