On 27 February Harry’s parents, Becky and Matthew, travelled down to the University of Sussex to attend a reception for current students in receipt of scholarships at the University’s Meeting House. This provided them with an opportunity to meet the first recipient of the Harry Lownds Memorial Scholarship, Ieva Didziokaite. [Scholars’ Celebration 2020 – University of Sussex Events]
At the time of the Scholars’ Celebration Ieva had started work on a practical project on the recently identified Ebola virus species Bombali, using pseudotype systems to develop a potential vaccine against this pathogen. Unfortunately when Coronavirus triggered a national lockdown a few weeks later the University was forced to halt all in-person studies. In May Ieva returned to Lithuania where she has been working on her MSc dissertation, a literature review about candidate vaccines against Ebola virus and antivirals which have previously been observed to be effective against it.