Guest Speaker Biographies

Professor Thomas MacDonald gained his PhD in Immunology at Glasgow University and then spent 10 years in the USA, mostly at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He was made a Professor of the University of London in 1991 and in 2000 moved to the University of Southampton School of Medicine as Professor of Immunology and Head of the Division of Infection, Inflammation and Repair, before returning to London in 2005.

Professor MacDonald has a long-term interest in the intestinal immune system in health and disease, particularly chronic inflammatory bowel disease, food hypersensitivity, the relationship between the normal flora and gut immunity, and protective immunity to bacterial pathogens. In 2008, he received the Presidents Medal of the British Society for Gastroenterology for his contribution to GI research. Professor MacDonald has over 400 publications, mostly on how inappropriate immune reactions cause disease in the human gut. He was awarded FRCPath in 1995 and FMedSci in 2002 on the basis of his published works.

Professor MacDonald is an associate editor of Mucosal Immunology and the IBD journal, a member of the review panel of NC3R’s, Action Medical Research and chairs the MRC non-clinical training panel.

Stuart B Levy, M.D., Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology and of Medicine, is the Director of the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at Tufts University School of Medicine and Staff Physician at the Tufts Medical Center. He co-founded and leads the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA), an international non-profit organization with 65 country chapters and members in over 100 countries. He is a past President of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and co-founder of Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Levy has published more than 250 papers, as well as four edited books and two special journal editions on the subject of antibiotic use and resistance. His 1992 book, The Antibiotic Paradox: How Miracle Drugs Are Destroying the Miracle, has been cited widely and translated into four languages. Levy has received honorary degrees in biology from Wesleyan University (1998) and from Des Moines University (2001). In 2005, colleagues honored him with the ASM book: Frontiers in Antibiotic Resistance: a Tribute to Stuart B. Levy.

He was awarded ASM’s 1995 Hoechst-Roussel Award for esteemed research in antimicrobial chemotherapy, the 2011 Hamao Umezawa Memorial Award by the International Society of Chemotherapy and the 2012 Abbott-ASM Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Infectious disease Society of America, the American Academy of Microbiology and the Association for the Advancement of Science. He was Chairperson of the U.S. 1986 Fogarty Center study of “Antibiotic use and resistance worldwide” and helped write the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment report on antibiotic resistant bacteria. He consults for international and national organizations including the World Health Organization, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the U.S. FDA and U.S. EPA.

Professor Oxford’s research interest is the pathogenicity of influenza, in particular the origin and nature of 1918 Spanish Influenza strain. He also conducts clinical trials using new influenza vaccines and antiviral drugs. His research has recently been featured on TV science programmes in the UK, USA, Germany and Holland. He has co-authored two standard texts: Influenza; the Viruses and the Disease with Sir Charles Stuart-Harris and G.C. Schild, and most recently Human Virology, a Text for Students of Medicine, Dentistry and Microbiology with L. Collier and P. Kellam, published by Oxford University Press and now in its fourth edition. Professor Oxford has also published 300 scientific papers.

He is Founder, President and Scientific Director of Retroscreen Virology Ltd (www.retroscreen.com). He was awarded a Society for Applied Microbiology (SfAM) Communications Award for the influenza pandemic by the Society for Applied Microbiology, and top communicator by the Society of Journalists. He was placed amongst the 1000 most influential Londoners by the Independent and Evening Standard newspapers. He has recently been awarded a DSc for his research work on virology and as a science communicator, and elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCPE).

Professor Altiner finished medical school in Cologne, Germany in 1997 after which he undertook his vocational training in Duisburg. Since 2001 he worked as researcher at the department of General Practice in Düsseldorf and, in 2009, became Professor of General Practice and Head of the Department of General Practice at Rostock University Medicine.

Professor Altiner’s research interests include physician–patient communication, respiratory infections and antibiotics, and cardiovascular disease prevention in primary care.

In 2012 he was elected as Dean of Education of the medical school of Rostock University. In addition to research and teaching, he sees patients in clinic at least twice a week. Professor Altiner has authored and co-authored many peer reviewed publications.

Mr Bell co-authored the PSA’s Dispensary Technicians Training Course and is one of the PSA’s approved trainers in the Standards of Practice for the provision of pharmacist-only and pharmacy-only medicines. He was formerly President of the Commonwealth Pharmacists’ Association (CPA), and on behalf of CPA was a member of delegations to a number of Commonwealth countries to consider and make recommendations on matters relating to pharmacy practice and public health. In his time as Chairman of the CPA/FIP(International Pharmaceutical Federation)/WHO Malaria Task Group which implemented consumer awareness programmes in developing Commonwealth countries. John Bell has also acted as consultant to the Tiwi Health Board regarding pharmacy practice in remote indigenous communities in Australia.

For more than 20 years, he presented a weekly, state-wide, talk-back radio program ‘The Friendly Pharmacist’, and he writes a weekly health column distributed to over 400 newspapers and magazines throughout Australia. Since 1969, Mr Bell has been the proprietor/manager of a community pharmacy in Sydney, which also provides specialist services to nursing homes, hostels and private hospitals.

Dr Duerden has carried out regular sessional work as a part-time GP in Conwy, North Wales since 1999, and in 2003 became Medical Director at Conwy Local Health Board, reorganised to BCUHB in 2009. He qualified at Newcastle University and was a full-time GP in the north east of England for eight years until 1994. He worked for several years as

Medical Adviser to East Norfolk Health Authority and subsequently trained in public health medicine in Cambridge. For three years Dr Duerden worked as Medical Director for the National Prescribing Centre for England, based in Liverpool. Following this, from 2001 he worked on various projects: as a medicines management consultant in University College London Hospitals Trust; with the PRODIGY project on decision support for general practice; and at Keele University.

Dr Duerden is on the Editorial Board of Prescriber and is a member of a NICE Technology Appraisal Committee and a Clinical Guideline Group. He organised the Diploma in Therapeutics at Cardiff University between 2005 and 2010. He was the lead author of the two King’s Fund Reports on The quality of GP prescribing, published in August 2011, and on Polypharmacy and medicines optimisation, published in November 2013. He is a Clinical Adviser to the Royal College of General Practitioners on prescribing and on evidence-based medicine.

Professor Essack’s research is focused on antibiotic stewardship and conservation, specifically strategies for the containment of antibiotic resistance based on surveillance, antibiotic use, risk factors, infection control and drug pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Professor Essack also has research interests in the phenotypic and genotypic delineation of resistance mechanisms and their dissemination and antibiotic resistance determinants in agriculture.

Professor Essack, a pharmacist by profession, is founder and co-Chair of the South African Chapter of the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA), serves on the South African Chapter of the Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (GARP) and the South African Antibiotic Stewardship Programme, and is a member of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and the Federation of Infectious Diseases Societies of South Africa.

Professor Essack established the Antimicrobial Research Unit at UKZN and has secured several research grants for essential national health research, from the WHO, the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the National Research Foundation investigating antibiotic resistance. Her research has been published in several journals and has been presented at a number of national and international conferences. She is also Associate Editor of the South African Journal of Epidemiology and Infection and serves on the Editorial Board of the African Journal of Microbiology Research.

Professor Kozlov is a member of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and the Federation of European Societies for Chemotherapy (FESCI). Professor Kozlov received both his PhD and DSc in Clinical Pharmacology and Microbiology at the Smolensk State Medical Academy in Smolensk, Russia. In 1996 he was awarded an MSc in Clinical Microbiology from the University of London and has been the recipient of several awards, including an ESCMID Award for Advances in Clinical Microbiology in 2005 and APUA Leadership Award in 2012. In 1995 and 2009, he was awarded a grant from the President of the Russian Federation.

Professor Kozlov has focused his clinical research on therapeutic agents for infectious diseases and has been involved in numerous clinical trials of antimicrobial agents. His main research interests are in the diagnosis, treatment and prophylaxis of serious microbial infections, both in the community and in hospitals, and in antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and surveillance. Professor Kozlov has authored and co-authored more than 250 publications.

Dr Noonan won the AVIVA/ICGP (Irish College of General Practitioners) Quality in Practice Award in 2011 for her research entitled “A two part study to assess patient’s knowledge and attitudes regarding antibiotic use for uncomplicated upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) and the effectiveness of using a patient information leaflet during the consultation to reduce antibiotic prescribing for URTIs in General Practice”. In 2014 she received a bursary from the International Primary Care Respiratory Group to attend their World Conference in Athens after her research was accepted for an oral presentation at the 7th Annual World Conference. She won the award for the best abstract submitted by a researcher new to the IPCRG conference.

Dr Noonan is currently working as a GP in a large forward thinking progressive practice where she specialises in Paediatrics and Women’s health. She has recently become involved in undergraduate Medical Student training. Dr Noonan also works as a Forensic Medical Examiner for the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit, Mullingar. Dr Noonan has completed the Diploma in Medicine for the Elderly, the Diploma in Child Health (Distinction), the Certificate in Minor Surgery with the ICGP, the Certificate in Contraception with the ICGP and is currently working towards a Diploma in Dermatology. She has also passed the first two parts of the membership examinations for the RCPI (Royal College of Physicians of Ireland) Paediatrics. She will complete the final part in late 2014. Dr Noonan received the honorary title University Scholar from NUIG (National University of Ireland, Galway) in 2006. She is a member of the ICGP and is a Steering Committee Member of the NEGs (Network of Establishing GPs) group of the ICGP. Dr Noonan is also a member of the Irish Respiratory Tract Treatment Forum. Dr Noonan is the Irish Steering Committee representative for the Education and Training theme group of Vaso De Gama which is the WONCA Europe Group for new GPs which has links to EURACT (the European Academy of Teachers in General Practice and Family Medicine).

Professor Pignatari’s current research interests include surveillance and mechanism of resistance to antimicrobials in nosocomial infections. He is also a research fellow of the EUREKA project, applying GIS techniques to assess the spread of bacterial resistance and antimicrobial use in the community. In addition to being microbiology coordinator of the Project SCOPE Brazil: surveillance of blood cultures in nosocomial infections, Professor Pignatari is also researching molecular detection of microorganisms in infectious diseases.

Professor Pignatari was previously Clinical Director of the Hospital São Paulo (1999−2003) and Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases (1994−2000). He is a Researcher and Consultant to the Brazilian Federal Council of Research and Health Ministry.

Professor Pignatari is on the editorial board of The Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases and The Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine, and is a referee for several other journals. He has authored or co-authored many peer-reviewed publications.

Dr Sessa is actively involved in the Società Italiana di Medicina Generale (SIMG) Pharmasearch network of clinical trials and drug surveillance in the setting of primary care. He is a course organiser for Continuing Medical Education programmes for General Practitioners, a trainer in General Practice and a teacher for trainers in the Vocational Training Programme. Dr Sessa has presented at 215 national and international congresses and conferences and has published 200 articles, chapters, reviews and translations.

In 1998 Dr Sessa co-ordinated the first group of 200 GPs that participated in the network of sentinel doctors for epidemiological surveillance of influenza and acute respiratory infections.

Dr Sessa is a member of the Italian Ministry of Health committee on influenza. He is a committee member for the Società Italiana di Medicina Generale, a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians and on the editorial board of Medicina Generale and of SIMG (official journals of the Società Italiana di Medicina Generale). Dr Sessa received his MD from University of Pavia in 1980 and completed an Internal Medicine residency at the University of Pavia. He has been a General Practitioner since 1982.

Dr van der Velden’s current and recent research projects are on prescribing and use of antibiotics. These include RAAK: Intervention trial in the Netherlands to assess the effectiveness of a web-based training for physicians to improve antibiotic use for children with respiratory tract infections; ARTI4: Implementation of a multiple intervention to optimise antibiotic prescription for respiratory tract infections; embedment within the practice accreditation of the Dutch College of General Practitioners; INTRO: Randomised trial in 6 European countries to optimise antibiotic prescription for cough by introducing the point-of-care CRP test or by training GPs in communication skills.

Other on-going projects are: continuous monitoring of antibiotic use and prescribing quality in the Netherlands, antipyretic use by children in the Netherlands, and a European intervention trial on effectiveness of antivirals for flu.

Dr van der Velden is a member of the Dutch Working Party on Antibiotic Policy (SWAB): Surveillance of antimicrobial use, and is involved in education of medical students and primary care physicians.