Born and raised in Oxford, UK, Jonathan Stoye was an undergraduate at Cambridge University, reading Natural Sciences (1970-1973).  He lived the next eight years in Basel, Switzerland, first working as a technician then as a PhD student. In 1982 he moved to Boston, USA as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr John Coffin, a leading expert on retroviruses.  He witnessed at first hand the start of the AIDS epidemic, a topic of intense continuing interest.  In 1989 he returned to the UK, starting his own lab at the MRC’s National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, London, investigating retrovirus – host interactions.  He headed the NIMR Virology Division from 2001-2015.  From 2015 he has been a Senior (now Principal) Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute, assuming the role of International Activities Ambassador in 2019.  He has served on several scientific advisory committees, including the Pontifical Academy for Life Working Group on Xenotransplantation (2001), the Advisory Committee for Releases into the Environment (2002-2008), the United Kingdom Xenotransplantation Interim Regulatory Authority (2003-2006) and the MRC’s Infection and Immunity Board (2017-2021).  He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2017.