ESCMID Young Investigator Awards for Research in CM and ID

Norbert Pardi
Philadelphia, United States
Developing a new vaccine class using nucleoside-modified mRNA

Dr. Pardi obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Genetics from the University of Szeged, Hungary. After receiving his Ph.D. degree in 2011 he joined Dr. Drew Weissman’s laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. He explored the development of a novel, versatile vaccine delivery platform using nucleoside-modified mRNA encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles. He played an instrumental role in the development of potent new generation mRNA-based vaccines against various important pathogens including HSV-2, Zika and influenza viruses. He has been heavily involved in SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine development as well. Additionally, Dr. Pardi’s studies significantly contributed to understanding the mechanism of action of this novel vaccine type. Currently, Dr. Pardi is an Assistant Professor at the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania and has been working on the development of universal influenza vaccines using his mRNA-based vaccine platform. Dr. Pardi has built up an extensive collaborative network including more than 20 laboratories in the United States, South America, Europe and Asia.

Paolo Miotto
Milan, Italy
Moving toward precision medicine for tuberculosis 

Dr. Miotto is a Research associate at the IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele in Milan (Italy) working on tuberculosis. He holds an MSc in Molecular biology of the Cell from the University of Milano and a Ph.D. in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Siena. Dr. Miotto’s interest in biological sciences motivated his decision to take the first steps in the field of research and join the scientific community. After working on drug resistance mechanisms and diagnosis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the challenge to better understand the biological reasons behind the success of this pathogen lead him to approach host-pathogen interaction studies. Despite the different themes considered in the field, the shared motif underlining his research interests is the attempt to translate basic research findings into clinically useful information.

Niccolò Buetti
Geneva, Switzerland
From national epidemiology to the bedside of the patient:
expanding our knowledge of intravascular catheter-related bloodstream infections 

Dr. Buetti studied medicine at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. In 2013, he started his career in infectious diseases as a resident at the Bern University Hospital, Switzerland. He subsequently worked as a consultant at the Bern University Hospital and was deputy-head of research and development of Swissnoso (National Center for Infection Control, Switzerland). In 2019, he obtained a Master degree in clinical epidemiology and healthcare research from the Sorbonne University of Paris, France. He is currently working at the IAME laboratory (Infection Antimicrobials Modelling Evolution, Team “Decision Science in Infectious Disease prevention, control and care”) in Paris and at Infection Control Program and WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety, University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Buetti’s research interests lie primarily in the epidemiology of community-acquired and hospital-acquired bloodstream infections as well as in the development of preventive measures and management strategies for intravascular catheter-related infections and multi-drug resistant microorganisms (e.g. vancomycin-resistant enterococci).

Jason Trubiano
Victoria, Australia
The emerging role of antibiotic allergy programs in antimicrobial stewardship 

Prof. Jason Trubiano is an Infectious Diseases Physician and NHMRC Research Fellow in Melbourne, Australia. He is the Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship (Austin Health) and Head of the Centre for Antibiotic Allergy and Research. Prof. Trubiano is a University of Melbourne Clinical Associate Professor and Emerging Leader of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. In 2017, he was awarded an NHMRC-supported PhD in antibiotic allergy testing in Antimicrobial Stewardship, and in 2020 completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the National Centre for Infections in Cancer exploring antibiotic allergy in immunocompromised hosts. His primary research remains in translational antibiotic allergy diagnostics, point-of-care tools and health services penicillin allergy testing programs. He has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals and his work in the development of antibiotic allergy assessment tools, clinical prediction rules and whole-of-hospital penicillin allergy testing programs have been published in leading journals and cited in international guidelines and health policy.

Marit van Gils
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Lessons learned from antibodies against SARS-CoV-2

Dr. Marit van Gils studied medical pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Groningen (Netherlands). She has performed her Ph.D. (2007-2011) at the University of Amsterdam in the lab of Dr. Schuitemaker on the humoral immune response after HIV-1 infection. She continued her career as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Sanders working on the development of an HIV protein vaccine at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam. Dr. Van Gils has also performed part of her postdoctoral research at the Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, United States) in the lab of Dr. Burton and in 2017 she started her own research group at the Amsterdam UMC studying the antibody and B cell responses after viral infection and vaccination. Antibody responses are vital in the protection against infectious diseases and the major goal in vaccine research is to induce potent antibodies. Gaining knowledge and control over the events needed to elicit these potent antibodies will be crucial to develop protective vaccines. Therefore, the lab of Dr. van Gils studies monoclonal antibodies from natural infection and vaccination for their phenotype, affinity, and specificity to guide vaccine design.