Last week, Senior Post-Doctoral Research Scientist, Daniela Ferreira, visited Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen in the Netherlands, to deliver a talk about the work that she leads on vaccine development at LSTM.
She was invited to deliver her talk, entitled “Developing a protein-based vaccine: What we can learn from experimental human carriage?” by Dr Aldert Zomer, who collaborates with the team at LSTM on the study of microbiome of nasopharynx of volunteers inoculated with pneumococcus in Liverpool.
The team at LSTM and the laboratory of Pediatric Diseases in Radbound University are working together towards the development of new protein vaccines against pneumococcus, the bacterium that can cause pneumonia and meningitis, and the mechanisms of immune responses that protect against infections.
Dr Ferreira’s talk centred around her research, which is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and is being carried out in collaboration with the Butantan Institute in São Paulo, Brazil. She is using the protective healthy immunity observed in adult volunteers who have undergone nasal inoculation with pneumococcus to help develop a vaccine based on their immune response.
During her visit to the Netherlands Dr Ferreira had discussions about the current worldwide pneumococcal vaccine policy with the Director of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Professor Ronald De Groot, and talked about further collaboration with the team from the Radbound University which is led by Dr Marien de Jonge.
As an outcome of her visit, Daniela will be hosting a student from Radbound University for an internship at the Respiratory Infection group at LSTM and Dr Aldert Zomer that will be delivering a seminar in May at LSTM Immunology Forum.