Dr Jurre Siegers is a Postdoctoral Scientist in the Virology Unit at the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). His main area of expertise is One Health pathogen surveillance and risk assessment.
Jurre completed his PhD in Virology in 2020 at the Department of Viroscience, Erasmus Medical Center (Rotterdam, Netherlands) in the research groups of Debby van Riel / Thijs Kuiken, where his thesis examined extra-respiratory complications of human and avian influenza A virus infections, focusing on neurotropism and central nervous system invasion.
In 2020, Jurre relocated to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where his postdoctoral research has focused on emerging and zoonotic respiratory viruses at high-risk human–animal interfaces across Southeast Asia, integrating novel field and environmental sampling technologies, outbreak response, pathogen risk assessment, and next-generation sequencing (ONT, Illumina) within a One Health framework.
In addition, Jurre is actively involved in local and regional (Asia-Pacific) capacity-building programs strengthening pathogen genomic surveillance programs and bioinformatics, collaborating with local government and ministries and with international partners such as the World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In 2022, Jurre received a Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID) Network Pilot Research Program grant where he is integrating environmental metagenomics—pioneering air and water sampling for early pathogen detection—into Cambodia’s surveillance at high-risk human–animal interfaces to complement and enhance existing surveillance programs.
Jurre has authored >30 publications, with work appearing in leading journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Microbiology, Nature Biotechnology, PLOS Pathogens, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Journal of Virology, and the Journal of Infectious Diseases. His contributions have been recognized with >20 awards, including best oral presentation, poster, and travel awards/scholarships.
