Morning Wrap-up at the Respiratory Virus Summit 2026

Nationality: Dutch

Position: Associate Professor, Department of Viroscience, Erasmus MC, The Netherlands

Research Fields: Pathogenesis of respiratory virus infections; Neurological complications; Systemic Inflammation; Influenza A viruses; SARS-CoV-2; Enterovirus D-68;

Short description:
Debby van Riel is an Associate Professor at the Department of Viroscience, Erasmus MC, The Netherlands. After obtaining her MSc at the John Moores University in the UK, she continued her PhD studying the cell tropism of influenza viruses, which she defended in 2010. Since then her research focuses on the pathogenesis of extra-respiratory complications of respiratory virus infections, such as influenza A viruses (seasonal, pandemic and zoonotic influenza viruses), Enterovirus-D68, and SARS-CoV-2. These studies have revealed important new insights into the mechanism of systemic virus dissemination, routes of virus invasion into the central nervous system, systemic inflammatory responses, and the development of central nervous system complications. Her work has been published in leading scientific journals including Science, Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Materials and Trends in Neurosciences and she received multiple prestigious personal grants (a.o. Veni, Vidi, Aspasia, EUR fellowship, Erasmus MC fellowships) and prizes (ESWI award, Beijerinck Premium).