Meet the experts
On this page you will find biographies of each of our experts who are all extremely knowledgeable in the field of meningitis. We are very grateful for their support.
Dr Saul Faust
Saul N. Faust MRCPCH PhD FHEA is Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Infectious Diseases & Immunology and Director of the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility at the University of Southampton.
As an MRC Clinical Training Fellow in Paediatric Intensive Care & Infectious Diseases and then Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College London, he completed his PhD on the pathophysiology of coagulation abnormalities in meningococcal sepsis, work that led directly to clinical trials in paediatric intensive care.
Current projects include work to bridge the clinical-laboratory interface in paediatric infectious diseases and respiratory medicine, and in developing local and national clinical trials in paediatric infectious diseases. His research interests continue to investigate the pathophysiology and treatment of paediatric and neonatal sepsis and he is chief investigator of a NIHR Medicines for Children Research Network adopted phase II multicentre study of corticosteroids in paediatric sepsis, funded by the Meningitis Research Foundation.
SF is co-applicant and infection programme lead for the Southampton NIHR Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit and is an active member of the UK paediatric vaccine research group. As WTCRF Director, SF is responsible for paediatric research governance at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust and is convenor or the UK Paediatric Clinical Research Facilities forum.
Professor Adam Finn
Head of the Academic Unit of Child Health at Bristol Medical School, Dept of Clinical Science South Bristol, and an honorary consultant in paediatric infectious diseases and immunology at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.
Adam Finn is director of the South West Medicines for Children Research Network and heads the Bristol Children's Vaccine Centre. His main research interests include mucosal immunology relating to bacterial vaccines, in particular pneumococcus and clinical trials of vaccines and medicines in children. For further details about the work being undertaken at Bristol Children's Vaccine Centre please see Professor Finn's page on The University of Bristol website.
Dr Scott Hackett
Paediatric infectious diseases, immunology and allergy consultant, Birmingham heartlands hospital. Trained in paediatrics in Liverpool and Newcastle. Completed a 2 year research project looking at improving diagnosis, and causes of severity in meningococcal disease. Member of the Liverpool Meningococcal Disease research team. Current research interests include viral respiratory infections including ‘Flu', congenital CMV, Toxic Shock syndrome, Lyme disease and imaging in immunodeficient children and their management.
Professor Michael Levin
Michael Levin is Professor of Paediatrics and International Child Health at Imperial College London. He trained in medicine in South Africa and in paediatrics in the UK before specialising in infectious diseases. He was Consultant in Infectious Diseases at Great Ormond Street Hospital before being appointed as Professor of Paediatrics at Imperial College London in 1990. His research has focused on life threatening infections of childhood (a) meningococcal disease and (b) childhood tuberculosis.
In collaboration with links in Kenya, he has investigated the role of fluid depletion in severe malaria and undertaken studies which suggest that volume expansion with albumin may reduce mortality (exploring how to prevent malaria deaths).
Professor Levin currently heads an international EU funded consortium studying novel diagnostic methods for tuberculosis in Africa and also leads an EU funded consortium funding the genetic basis of meningococcal disease.
He is also a Principal Investigator within the Centre for Respiratory Infection.
Dr Simon Nadel
I am a consultant and honorary reader in paediatric intensive care at St Mary's Hospital and Imperial College London. I became a consultant in 1994, having completed my training in paediatric infectious disease at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and paediatric intensive care training at Great Ormond Street and St Mary's.
I have a major clinical and research interest into life-threatening infection in children, and have been involved in many studies examining the susceptibility, treatment and outcome of infections such as meningitis and septicaemia.
Professor Andrew Pollard
ANDREW J POLLARD, FRCPCH PhD, is Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity at the University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group in the University Department of Paediatrics, Fellow of St Cross College and Honorary Consultant Paediatrician at the Children's Hospital, Oxford, UK. He chairs the UK's NICE meningitis guidelines development committee.
He obtained his medical degree at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, University of London in 1989 and trained in Paediatrics at Birmingham Children's Hospital, UK, specialising in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at St Mary's Hospital, London, UK and at British Columbia Children's Hospital, Vancouver, Canada. He obtained his PhD at St Mary's Hospital, London, UK in 1999 studying immunity to Neisseria meningitidis in children and proceeded to work on anti-bacterial innate immune responses in children in Canada before returning to his current position at the University of Oxford, UK in 2001.
Current research activities include clinical trials of new and improved vaccines for children, invasive bacterial diseases in children in Nepal, studies of cellular and humoral immune responses to glycoconjugate vaccines, research on the genetic control of the human immune response and investigations on meningococcal host-pathogen interactions and development of a serogroup B meningococcal vaccine.
His publications include over 200 manuscripts and books on various topics in paediatrics, and infectious diseases.
Professor Robert Read
Professor of Infectious Diseases and Honorary Consultant Physician to the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Foundation NHS Trust.
Robert Read's clinical work is based at the Infectious Disease Unit at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, and his research is conducted within the Henry Wellcome Laboratories of the Sheffield University School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. He received undergraduate and postgraduate clinical training at Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, London and Nottingham hospitals, and trained in research at the National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, and at University of California at San Francisco. His research interests include pathogenesis and prevention of meningococcal disease. For more information please see Professor Read's full biography on the University of Sheffield's wesbite.
Dr Andrew Riordan
Andrew Riordan is Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust, UK. He was Johanne Holly Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool and wrote his Doctoral Thesis on Meningococcal Disease. He was lecturer in Paediatric Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham, UK and then developed the Paediatric Infectious disease service there, before returning to Liverpool.
MeningitisUK · Registered Charity No.1076774