Catalyst Training Awards - Awardees

Dr Ritu Amatya
Head of Microbiology Department
Nepal Medical College and Teaching Hospital, Nepal

Training placement at the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) in South Korea
To experience hands-on training on cholera Vibriocidal Assay and Typhoid IgG ELISA.

Mr Adriano Palharini de Araújo
PhD student
Instituto Butantan, Brazil

Training visit to Carnegie Mellon University, USA
To be trained in the production and characterization of extracellular vesicles (EVs) from Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Dr Achut Barakoti
Clinical Microbiologist
Nepal Medical College and Teaching Hospital, Nepal

Attendance at Vaccinology for Public Health & Clinical Practice in 21st Century

Dr Punnadath Preetham Elumalai
Associate Professor (Biochemistry)
Cochin University of Science & Technology, India

Dr Birendra Prasad Gupta
Assistant Professor
Tropical Disease Research Unit, Tribhuvan University, Nepal

Training visit to International Vaccine Institute, South Korea 
To expand knowledge of work on bacterial vaccine clinical trial protocol design to build on existing expertise.

Dr Astrid Hendriks 
Post-doctoral Researcher 
Amsterdam UMC, The Netherlands

Training placement at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) in La Jolla, USA 
Investigating the protective properties of S. aureus surface glycan-specific antibodies in vivo.

Ms Esther Imede
Laboratory Technologist
MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit, Uganda

Training visits to MRC Unit The Gambia, and University of Oxford, UK 
To gain an understanding in T-cell immunity following TdaP vaccination in pregnancy.

Dr Kan Kaneko
Post-doc Researcher
Liverpool John Moores University, UK

Training visit to Instituto Butantan, Brazil 
To work on antigen production and preparation with a view to further collaborative research on novel vaccine formulations.

Miss Agness Lakudzala
PhD Student
Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme, Malawi

Training placement at the Ragon Institute, USA 
To gain training on the Systems Serology platform (a fusion of high throughput experimental techniques aimed at dissecting antibody features and functions).

Dr Sreeja Lakshmi
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
King Nandhivarman College of Arts and Science, India

Training visit to The Moredun Research Foundation, UK 
To gain knowledge of proteomic analysis of antigenic components in vaccinated tilapia by LC-MS/MS.

Ms Alexandra Sanchez Martinez 
PhD student 
University of Surrey, UK

Training placement to University of Oxford, UK
For training in assays for measuring inflammasome activation pathways in innate cells with the aim to evaluate bacterial vaccine formulations during immunosenescence. 

Ms Giuliana de Oliveira
Masters Student
Instituto Butantan, Brazil

Training placement at the Liverpool School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK
To study functional assays for the detection of protective antibodies induced by novel vaccines against Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Dr Laura Maria Andrade de Oliveira
Post-doc fellow
Instituto de Microbiologia Paulo de Goes, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil

Training visit to UK Health Security Agency, UK
To exchange knowledge on the study of GBS towards evaluation of the impact of a future GBS vaccine.

Ms Jamie Pillaye
PhD Student
University of Birmingham, UK

Training visit to University of Cape Town, South Africa
To investigate potential maternal vaccination strategies against pneumococcus and Salmonella to combat infection in low-to-middle-income-countries. 

Dr Nopadon Pirarat
Associate Professor
Faculty of Veterinary Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Training visit to The Aquaculture Research Group at Moredun Research Institute, UK
To gain training on the use of immunoassays to assess vaccine efficacy in vaccinated tilapia.

Mr Henry Ssenyondo
Master of Medicine Candidate
Makere University, Uganda

Training visit to Minervax, Sweden
To study Maternal Antibody in Milk After Group B Streptococcus Vaccination in Uganda: MAMA study

Mr Godwin Tembo
Research Assistant
Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme, Malawi

Placement at Leiden University Medical Centre, The Netherlands
To learn a flow cytometry method to characterize pneumococcal polysaccharide-specific B cell immunity followed by setting up of the spectral flow cytometry method at the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Programme.

Dr Anna Erika Vieira de Araujo
R&D Biotechnologist
Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos - Immunobiological Technology Institute, Brazil

Training visit to NIBSC, UK
To gain OPKA Training