Sarah Woodyear
PhD Candidate (Microbiology)
Originally from the UK, Sarah studied BSc Biology at the University of Bristol and MSc Medical Microbiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. After University, she moved to Surrey to work as a research assistant at the Pirbright Institute prior to moving across the Atlantic to get the Caddy Lab started in 2022.
Currently a fourth year graduate student and working primarily on our intracellular neutralization assay. Here she electroporates antibodies inside cells to quantify how rotavirus is able to neutralize these within the cell.
Outside of the lab Sarah loves camping, bike rides, and running.
First-Author Publications
Woodyear S, Chandler TL, Chen V, Lonergan TM, Baker N, Harcourt K, Clare S, Ahmed F, Caddy SL. Mechanisms of maternal antibody interference with rotavirus vaccination. EMBO J. 2025 Oct 14. doi: 10.1038/s44318-025-00582-2. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 41087582.
Woodyear S, Chandler TL, Kawagishi T, Lonergan TM, Patel VA, Williams CA, Permar SR, Ding S, Caddy SL. Chimeric Viruses Enable Study of Antibody Responses to Human Rotaviruses in Mice. Viruses. 2024 Jul 16;16(7):1145. doi: 10.3390/v16071145. PMID: 39066309; PMCID: PMC11281508
Awards
American Society for Virology Student Travel Award, March 2025
Bicknese Prize Awardee, January 2025
Conferences
Woodyear, S. (2026). Poster presentation at the American Association of Immunologists, April 16, 2026, Boston, MA.
Woodyear, S. (2025). Novel antibody-dependent intracellular neutralization assay to assess rotavirus vaccine efficacy. Oral presentation at the 15th International dsRNA Virus Symposium, November 7, 2025, Porto, Portugal.
Woodyear, S. (2025). Novel antibody neutralization assays to assess rotavirus vaccine efficacy. Oral presentation at the American Society for Virology 44th Annual Meeting, July 16, 2025, Montréal, Canada.
Woodyear, S. (2024). Chimeric viruses enable study of antibody responses to human rotaviruses in mice. Oral presentation at the American Society for Virology 43rd Annual Meeting, June 26, 2024, Columbus, OH, USA.