After completing her specialist training, Dunachie moved to
Bangkok, where she worked in the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit. She returned to the University of Oxford in 2015, where she headed the Tropical Immunology Group. In 2020 she was appointed as Global Research Professor by the
National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). Dunachie works in infectious diseases and vaccines, particularly attempting to improve the immune responses of people suffering from diabetes. She performs research in tropical countries, where she combines microbiology and immunology to accelerate the discovery of vaccines. In particular, Dunachie has worked on
melioidosis,
scrub typhus,
tuberculosis and
severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. In response to the
COVID-19 pandemic, Dunachie switched her focus to investigating SARS‑CoV‑2, with a specific focus on
T cell immunity. At the time it was unclear what role T cells played in immunity to
COVID-19. In particular, diabetic patients appeared to be more susceptible to severe disease. Dunachie leads the Protective Immunity for T cells in Healthcare workers (PITCH) study, which explores immune responses to the
COVID-19 vaccines. She has focused on the
Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and the
Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in the
United Kingdom, but also worked with researchers in
Vietnam and
Bangladesh. She worked with
Eleanor Barnes to investigate how immunocompromised patients respond to the vaccinations. Her hope is that the insight she gains from this work will facilitate the design of vaccinations against
melioidosis. Dunachie is a Fellow at
Corpus Christi College, Oxford. == Selected publications ==