Scientific Advisory Panel

Professor Caroline Trotter is an infectious disease epidemiologist with a particular interest in vaccine evaluation. She has worked extensively on the epidemiology and control of bacterial meningitis. Caroline is Professor of Global Health at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium at Imperial College London. She is the co-chair for the WHO Technical Taskforce for Defeating Meningitis by 2030 and deputy chair of the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

Anne von Gottberg is currently the laboratory lead at the Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa; and Associate Professor within the School of Pathology, Faculty of the Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; and Honorary Professor, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town.

She leads a laboratory team responsible for reference diagnostics for respiratory and meningitis pathogens nationally and regionally. The laboratory is the regional reference laboratory for the World Health Organization (WHO) Vaccine-preventable Invasive Bacterial Diseases (VP-IBD) Coordinated Global Surveillance Network for the southern African region; a National Influenza Centre (NIC); and a global WHO RSV and regional SARS-CoV-2 reference laboratory.

She is currently a member of several committees and technical advisory groups for AFRO, Africa CDC and WHO. Her main interests include surveillance for meningitis and respiratory pathogens, assessing vaccine effectiveness where relevant. She has authored or co-authored more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals. In addition, she supervises a number of Masters and PhD students. Dr von Gottberg obtained her MBBCh and PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand, and trained for her specialisation in clinical microbiology (FC Path[SA] MICRO) at the National Health Laboratory Service (former South African Institute for Medical Research) and at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Suzanne is a community child health paediatrician with a long-standing interest in tropical paediatrics, particularly in the areas of tuberculosis and child public health in Africa. She has combined this with multi-disciplinary laboratory and clinical research.

From 2007 to 2016 she worked in sub-Saharan Africa, latterly running the clinical services department at the MRC Unit The Gambia for five years. Since returning to the UK she works as a consultant paediatrician with Evelina London Children’s Community Services and with the UCL MRC Clinical Trials Unit on a multi-centre treatment and outcome trial of TB meningitis.

Merijn Bijlsma is a paediatrician and researcher. His training in paediatrics and epidemiology was at Amsterdam UMC in the Netherlands. After completing a PhD focused on the epidemiology of bacterial meningitis at the University of Amsterdam, he continued his research with a focus of long-term outcome after meningitis and neonatal Group B streptococcal disease.

He combines national surveillance data, with large clinical cohorts and bacterial genetic sequencing, with the aim of improving diagnostics and prevention. Merijn is a member of the Dutch guideline committee and has co-authored the latest national guidelines on bacterial meningitis diagnosis and treatment.

Prof Dominique Caugant is Director of Research at the Division for Infection Control, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, and Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Meningococci, Oslo, Norway.

She is responsible for the National Reference Laboratories in Norway for Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Neisseria meningitidis.

She is Adjunct Professor at the University of Oslo since 1999, first at the Faculty of Dentistry (until 2009), presently at the Section for International Health, Faculty of Medicine.

Her main fields of research are population genetics and molecular epidemiology of pathogenic bacteria, developing molecular tools for the study of infectious disease transmission, the development of antibiotic resistance and the evolution of pathogens. She is also involved in vaccine research, especially against meningococcal disease, including development of outer membrane vesicle vaccines, testing potential coverage of new vaccines and evaluation of impact of vaccination. She is involved in several international research projects, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Professor Hannah Christensen is an infectious disease epidemiologist, with expertise in mathematical modelling and health economics. Her research focuses on how best to use vaccines to prevent disease. Hannah was responsible for developing models of meningococcal disease and vaccination used by policy makers in the UK and several countries in Europe to inform their decisions about the use of Bexsero and MenACWY vaccines against meningococcal disease. Her current research focuses on better understanding the drivers of vaccine uptake and how best to appropriately value the benefits of vaccines. Hannah is based at the University of Bristol, has an honorary position with UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and co-leads the Vaccinate theme for the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Evaluation and Behavioural Science at University of Bristol.

Professor Nora Ellen Groce, an anthropologist, is Director of the UCL International Disability Research Centre at University College London. Known for her work in global health and international development with a focus on social justice, much of her work has concentrated on vulnerable populations and particularly on people with disabilities, Groce has done applied research on poverty, domestic violence, the disabling consequences of infectious diseases and access to health care for poor and marginalized populations.

Now holding the Cheshire Chair at University College London she was previously on the faculties of Harvard University (1984-1990) and Yale (1990-2008), where she helped establish and run the Global Health Programme before coming to UCL in 2008. Widely published, Groce also serves on a number of national, international and United Nations committees and advisory boards.

Brenda is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow within the Division of Infection and Immunity at University College London. Brenda’s research interests are to characterise the mechanisms that modulate transmission of respiratory pathogens using cutting-edge “omics”, with the aim to guide the development of more effective control strategies. As part of her Wellcome Fellowship, Brenda is using an innovative vaccine-probe study to investigate the role of under-fives in within-household transmission of the pneumococcus to infants.

In the process of doing this, Brenda is also developing tools for early, rapid, and accurate diagnosis of acute bacterial meningitis (ABM) that could improve case ascertainment in resource limited settings. Brenda also works with the World Health Organization (WHO) and Regional Reference Laboratories supporting surveillance of acute bacterial meningitis across Africa. Brenda contributed to the development of the current WHO guidelines on controlling pneumococcal outbreaks in the African “meningitis belt” and the WHO Defeating Meningitis 2030 Global Roadmap. Brenda has won numerous awards including the first prestigious MRC-LSHTM West Africa Global Health Research Fellowship.

Over the last 20 years, he has led epidemiological, translational research studies and randomized clinical trials in Uganda in collaboration with colleagues from different Universities globally. He has been Principal Investigator on studies focused on improving survival among persons with advanced HIV disease with a focus on HIV related meningitis providing evidence that has influenced key global guidelines. He has served on World Health Organisation guideline panels, Data Safety Monitoring boards and scientific advisory panels. He currently chairs the Advanced HIV Disease Technical Working group at the Uganda Ministry of Health.