Daniela is Head of the Clinical Sciences Department and Professor of Respiratory Vaccines and Infection Immunology.
The team’s work focuses on pneumococcal bacteria and the development of new vaccine strategies. The Experimental Human Pneumococcal Challenge (EHPC) Model is the only model in the world in which participants are inoculated with live pneumococcal bacteria in their nose. This model is used as a vaccine testing platform as well as a transmission model for prevention strategies with multiple flourishing life science partnerships. This work is critical as pneumonia kills more children globally than any other infectious disease.
Daniela’s work has involved the development and trialling of a number of COVID-19 vaccine candidates, including the FASTER study in partnership with Pfizer, which aims to understand how bacterial pneumonia leads to severe COVID-19 infections. Daniela also leads the LSTM-arm of the phase III Oxford vaccine trials.
Daniela’s team also runs the Accelerator Research Clinic (ARC), a state-of-the-art facility for respiratory research at LSTM which has had more than 2,000 clinical research participants (XX for COVID-19).