Chair: Professor Julian Hiscox, University of Liverpool and UK-ICN Director

Dr Giada Mattiuzzo, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) – Standardisation of COVID-19 serological assays: tools and challenges

Giada is leading the Viral Vaccines group at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). She joined the Agency, formerly known as  NIBSC, in 2010 after being awarded a PhD in Molecular Virology by University College London. Her research interests focus on assay development and standardization for emerging viruses and viral vaccines. She is the project leader for the development World Health Organization (WHO) International Standards projects on several emerging viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, Rift Valley fever Virus, Lassa virus and Mpox.

Dr Neil Almond, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) – Applying animal models to dissect correlations of protection against SARS-CoV-2

Neil has been working at NIBSC and now MHRA South Mimms Laboratories since 1988, when he was appointed with short term funding from the MRC’s AIDS Directed Programme.  He worked on and subsequently led the programme to develop and apply simian models of HIV/AIDS to establish a scientific framework for the development of safe and effective vaccines for HIV/AIDS.  Over the past 10 years with the emergence/re-emergence of new viruses, he has worked with colleagues at MHRA-SML, UKHSA and Dstl to establish models of infection to establish the role of serological responses in protection to inform vaccine development, including Zika, CHIKV and most recently SARS-CoV-2, which will be the focus of his talk.