Date: Monday 31 January 2022
Time: 17:30 - 18:30
Professor Kirsty Le Doare delivered her inaugural lecture "Group B Streptococcus – 50 years without a vaccine".
Professor Le Doare discussed the development challenges of Group B Streptococcal vaccines, including the need for alternatives to efficacy studies.
Learn more about Professor Le Doare's work to protect mothers and babies around the world.
Watch a recording of the lecture
About Professor Le Doare
Professor Le Doare is a Professor of Vaccinology and Immunology and Honorary Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology Consultant within the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Research Group at St. George’s, University of London.
She is currently based in Kampala, Uganda working with the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit, as well as with MUJHU, a partnership between Makarere University and Johns Hopkins University.
Kirsty has a background in economics and worked for ten years for non-governmental organisations prior to starting her medical degree. She undertook specialist training in paediatric infectious diseases and immunology in London and also academic PIID training through Imperial College, London.
Her research interests are age-related immune responses to infectious diseases, in particular to Group B-streptococcus (GBS), and she was awarded a Wellcome Trust clinical research training fellowship in 2013 which funded a 3-year period of clinical research based at MRC in The Gambia. She is interested in improving our knowledge of how maternal antibody in blood and breast milk is passed to babies and how this protects them from colonisation and disease. Her laboratory focus is on harnessing these tools of nature to improve vaccines and prevention strategies.
Her interest in GBS extends from basic pathophysiology and innate immunity, through clinical trials, to epidemiology and public health interventions aimed at reducing the morbidity and mortality due to this severe disease. She leads the GBS assay standardisation and serocorrelates of protection initiative and is part of the WHO task-force to defeat meningitis and develop the pathway for licensing the GBS vaccine. She has close collaborations with groups both in the UK and overseas, and although primarily based in Uganda, travels frequently to other African countries, and is currently involved in ongoing studies in various African sites including South Africa and Mozambique.
About our Inaugural Lectures
St George's newly arrived or promoted professors are invited to give an inaugural lecture to mark this milestone in their academic careers. Professors use the opportunity to introduce themselves, update colleagues on current and future research plans, and share their research with wider audiences. It is also a chance to celebrate the support from friends and family, and from colleagues, mentors, and collaborators past and present.