Louise Thwaites is a clinical researcher and member of the Emerging Infections group at OUCRU. She is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the University of Oxford.

She is an expert consultant to the World Health Organization and a member of the sepsis in resource-limited settings–expert consensus recommendations group of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine and CRITICal CARE Asia (Collaboration for Research, Implementation & Training in Intensive CARE in Asia). Louise is a member of the steering committee of the Asia Pacific Sepsis Association and leads the guidelines, policy and quality working group.

She has spent much of her career engaged in research into tetanus. This includes conducting a large randomized controlled trial of magnesium sulphate in tetanus, investigation into the underlying pathophysiology and long-term outcome following tetanus and, more recently, trying to understand which populations are most at risk of tetanus and ways to improve vaccination uptake in these communities.

Her broader research interests also include the management of sepsis and septic shock in resource-limited settings and understanding and preventing hospital-acquired infection in the intensive care unit. She is interested in ways of improving the care of critically ill patients using new technologies.

Her current role in the VITAL project involves developing new devices and technologies for use in diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation following diseases such as tetanus, sepsis and dengue.