Wendy Barclay holds the Chair in Influenza Virology at Imperial College London. She graduated in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and undertook her PhD at the Common Cold Unit in Salisbury. She trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Jeff Almond at the University of Reading and Dr Peter Palese at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Her studies aim to understand the molecular and cellular basis of the pathogenesis, host range restriction and transmissibility of influenza viruses. Her recent breakthrough is the identification of ANP32A as a host specific factor that underlies influenza A virus RNA polymerase host restriction, a finding that has evaded the influenza virus research community for decades.