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Simon is a viral immunologist who has worked in the field of virology and immunology since 1999 and gained considerable experience in academia, industry and the National Health Service. He trained in Immunology & Virology at Bristol University, Liverpool University, and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. His PhD studies were supervised by Dr Tom Blanchard, the primary aim of his research work was to devise heterologous prime-boost-boost vaccines that would provide protection against HIV-1 by eliciting high titres of broadly reactive neutralising antibodies (Bridge et al., 2011a).

Simon returned to Newcastle University in 2006 for his postdoctoral research and worked in the laboratory of Professors Geoffrey Toms and Margaret Bassendine, and Dr Dermot Neely. His research focused on the association of hepatitis C virus (HCV) with very- and low-density lipoproteins (VLDL/LDL) in the blood of infected patient’s and to examine the metabolic factors, which influence this (Felmlee et al., 2010; Bridge et al., 2011b; Sheridan et al., 2012; Sheridan et al., 2014a, Bridge et al., 2015). This work culminated in a clinical trial investigating whether statins and n3 fatty acids reduced viral loads and the quantity of virus associated with LDL (Sheridan et al., 2014b).

In September 2015, Simon was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in Virology and Viral Immunology following a 3 year, Anniversary Research Fellow in the Faculty of Health & Life Sciences at Northumbria University. Simon maintains an active research interest in viral hepatitis and is particularly interested in the role of HCV in triggering atherosclerosis (Bridge et al., 2018). He is also interested in the role of the microbial communities in cardiovascular & pulmonary disease, inflammatory bowel disease and autoimmune liver disease.