Dr Karin Darpel

Karin graduated as a veterinarian from the School of Veterinary Medicine in Hannover, Germany and completed her PhD studies on the pathogenesis of bluetongue virus (BTV) at The Pirbright Institute and the Royal Veterinary College, London. During her postdoctoral studies Karin focused on investigating alternative transmission pathways and persistence mechanisms of arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses).

In 2010 Karin also obtained a postgraduate certificate in Veterinary Epidemiology and Public Health from the RVC, London by distance learning. In June 2012 Karin joined the University of Surrey in a shared position as a lecturer in Veterinary Virology at the new School of Veterinary Medicine in combination with a Research Fellow in Arbovirus Immunology at The Pirbright Institute.

She returned to The Pirbright Institute full-time in May 2017 and now leads the Orbivirus research group.

Karin’s current research interest focuses on studying the pathogenesis and innate and adaptive immune responses to Culicoides (biting-midges) borne orbiviruses such as BTV in their mammalian hosts. She has a longstanding interest in understanding how host and virus factors lead to disease manifestation in some host species following infection with BTV, while others remain asymptomatically infected. A unique aspect of arbovirus transmission is the specific and complex series of interactions between the virus and vector arthropod blood-feeding, facilitated by arthropod saliva. Therefore ongoing studies further investigate the local and systemic mammalian immune responses towards Culicoides blood feeding and if these could be exploited for Culicoides control or virus transmission disruption.