CMVM Inaugural Lecture Showcase April 2026

Professor J Kenneth Baillie is a clinician–scientist whose career has transformed host genomics in infectious disease. He pioneered new machine-learning approaches to functional annotation and evidence synthesis, led open-source global preparations for outbreak research, and built the largest consented research study in the history of critical care medicine. He discovered important biological mechanisms underlying influenza and hepatitis. His discovery of causal evidence that TYK2 protein drives lung inflammation in life-threatening Covid-19 led directly to the finding that TYK2-inhibitor, baricitinib, saved critically-ill patients' lives - the first time a host genetic variant has led to an effective drug treatment for any infectious disease.

How to test a drug that doesn't exist, for a disease you don't understand.

Modern life support enables us to keep people alive when their organs are failing to perform their most basic functions. But beneath the sophistication of the machines and treatments that prevent death, there is a fundamental problem: we simply don't understand the mechanisms causing critical illness. So finding new treatments for the underlying disease processes has been extremely difficult. This is a story of how DNA can help.

Your genome is a vast, written programme that defines everything about how your body works. We live in a gap in history between learning to read that code, and learning to really understand it. But even without understanding how the program works, we can use shortcuts to answer questions about disease. This inaugural lecture will describe Professor Baillie's application of genomics in critical care medicine, his discovery of one effective new treatment, and the realistic potential to find more.

Professor Jim Flett Wilson has a long-standing interest in the population genetics of the British Isles, where he was first to identify Norse Viking genetic influences in his native Orkney over 20 years ago. His research seeks to understand the genetic influences on disease risk, particularly in isolated populations. He leads the Viking Genes studies of >10,000 volunteers from Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides. His recent work focusses on “actionable” genetic findings such as breast, ovarian and prostate cancer risk variants, and the preventative medicine opportunities arising through population-wide genetic screening among Scottish islanders.

Viking Genes: Ancestry and Health

The populations of the Scottish Islands have distinctive gene pools, due to their Norse-Scottish hybrid ancestry, small number of founders and long history of isolation. This inaugural lecture will discuss Professor Jim Flett Wilson’s studies of the genetic legacy of this history for Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides. He began studying the genetic ancestry of his Orkney home, moved on to the genetic underpinnings of disease risk and more recently has focussed on island-specific health risks. The lecture will discuss the population genetic structure of Scotland, the discovery of an enrichment of disease-causing variants (or founder effects) in the Scottish islands, the return of clinically important actionable findings to participants in the Viking Genes studies and the need for community-based genetic screening programmes for Orcadians, Shetlanders and Hebrideans.