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Sunetra Gupta (born 15 March 1965) is an Indian-born British infectious disease epidemiologist and a professor of theoretical
epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evide ...
at the
Department of Zoology, University of Oxford The Department of Zoology was a former science department in the University of Oxford's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division founded in 1860. From 1 August 2022 its functionality merged with the Department of Plant Sciences to bec ...
. She has performed research on the transmission dynamics of various infectious diseases, including
malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or deat ...
,
influenza Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptom ...
and
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...
, and has received the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London and the
Rosalind Franklin Award The Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award was established in 2003 and is awarded annually by the Royal Society to an individual for outstanding work in any field of Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and to support the promo ...
of the Royal Society. She is a member of the scientific advisory board of Collateral Global, an organisation which examines the global impact of COVID-19 restrictions. Gupta is also a novelist and a recipient of the
Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...
.


Early life and education

Gupta was born in
Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...
, India, to Dhruba and Minati Gupta. She trained in biology, and was awarded a bachelor's degree from
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...
. In 1992 she obtained her PhD from
Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a ...
for a thesis on the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases.


Career and research


Positions

Gupta is a professor of theoretical
epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evide ...
in the Department of Zoology at the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...
, where she leads a team of infectious disease epidemiologists. She has undertaken research on various infectious diseases, including
malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or deat ...
,
HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of '' Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immu ...
,
influenza Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptom ...
,
bacterial meningitis Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, headache, and neck stiffness. Other symptoms include confusion ...
and
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...
. She is a supernumerary fellow of
Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...
. She also sits on the European Advisory Board of
Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent Academic publishing, publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, ...
. In April 2021, she received a £90,000 donation from the Georg and Emily von Opel Foundation. In May 2022 she joined a partnership with Blue Water Vaccines, Inc. to apply her research to the development of a universal flu vaccine.


Awards

Gupta has been awarded the 2007 Scientific Medal by the
Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained the London Zoo, and since 1931 Whipsnade Park. History On 29 ...
and the 2009
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...
Rosalind Franklin Award The Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award was established in 2003 and is awarded annually by the Royal Society to an individual for outstanding work in any field of Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and to support the promo ...
. In July 2013, Gupta's portrait was on display during the prestigious
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...
's Summer Science Exhibition along with leading female scientist such as Madame Curie.


COVID-19

In March 2020, some modelling of the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...
by Gupta and colleagues was released to the media. Their model suggested that up to 68% of the UK population could already have been infected, suggesting broader immunity and a subsiding threat. The findings differed greatly from the work of other experts and quickly came under criticism. In May that year, she told UnHerd that she believed "the epidemic has largely come and is on its way out in he UK So, I think
he infection fatality rate He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
would be definitely less than one in a thousand, and probably closer to one in ten thousand." Both before and after this statement, the estimates of other experts have fallen in a range much higher than this. Gupta has been a critic of lockdowns in the pandemic. She was one of the primary authors of the
Great Barrington Declaration The Great Barrington Declaration was an open letter published in October 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. It claimed harmful COVID-19 lockdowns could be avoided via the fringe notion of "focused protection", by which t ...
in 2020, which advocated lifting
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...
restrictions on lower-risk groups to develop
herd immunity Herd immunity (also called herd effect, community immunity, population immunity, or mass immunity) is a form of indirect protection that applies only to contagious diseases. It occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population has become i ...
through infection, while stating that vulnerable people should be protected from the virus. The World Health Organization, as well as numerous other academic and public-health bodies, stated that the strategy proposed by the declaration is dangerous, unethical, and lacks a sound scientific basis. The American Public Health Association and 13 other public-health groups in the United States said in a joint open letter that the Great Barrington Declaration "is not a strategy, it is a political statement" and said it was "selling false hope that will predictably backfire". In 2021, she was an author at the Brownstone Institute, a new think tank founded by Jeffrey Tucker where senior roles were held by Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya, her co-authors on the Great Barrington Declaration.


Works of fiction

Gupta wrote her first works of fiction in Bengali. She was a translator of the poetry of
Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
. She has published several novels in English. In October 2012 her fifth novel, ''So Good in Black'', was longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Her novels have been awarded the
Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...
, the Southern Arts Literature Prize, shortlisted for the Crossword Award, and longlisted for the
Orange Prize The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously with sponsor names Orange Prize for Fiction (1996–2006 and 2009–12), Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–08) and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014–2017)) is one of the United Kingdom's m ...
.


Personal life

Gupta was married to the Irish vaccinologist Adrian V. S. Hill from 1994 to 2020. They have two daughters. Gupta has dismissed claims of having a
right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, autho ...
perspective, claiming to be "more Left than Labour".


Selected works


Journal articles

* * * * * * *


Novels

*''
Memories of Rain ''Memories of Rain'' is an English-language book written by Sunetra Gupta Sunetra Gupta (born 15 March 1965) is an Indian-born British infectious disease epidemiologist and a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the Department of Zoology ...
'' (1992) *''The Glassblower's Breath'' (1993) *''Moonlight into Marzipan'' (1995) *''A Sin of Colour'' (1999) *''So Good in Black'' (2009)


References


External links


Profile
on the Website of the Oxford Department of Zoology *
Sunetra Gupta
at AcademiaNet {{DEFAULTSORT:Gupta, Sunetra 1965 births Living people Princeton University alumni Alumni of Imperial College London Fellows of Merton College, Oxford Indian emigrants to England Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in English Indian medical researchers 20th-century Indian translators Indian women science writers Indian social sciences writers Indian epidemiologists Women evolutionary biologists Bengali chemists Scientists from Kolkata 21st-century Indian women scientists 21st-century Indian scientists Indian women medical researchers 20th-century Indian women scientists 20th-century Indian scientists Women scientists from West Bengal Women writers from West Bengal 20th-century Indian novelists 20th-century Indian women writers Indian women translators Indian women novelists 21st-century Indian translators 21st-century Indian novelists Novelists from West Bengal Writers from Kolkata 21st-century Indian women writers Women epidemiologists