European Diagnostic Platform for REsearch and support on Diagnostics for Infectious disease Clinical Trails.
This study aims to:
Task 7.1: Establish PREPARE laboratory facility and PREPARE Biobank to support the clinical networks in PREPARE Task 7.2: Rapid diagnostics Task 7.3: Bacterial and viral diagnostics Task 7.4: SOPs and EQA Task 7.5: Develop syndromic multiplex serological microarrays to screen for presence of exposure to viruses belonging to the families, most commonly involved in viral emerging diseases (paramyxoviruses, flaviviruses, coronaviruses) Task 7.6: Ad-hoc development and deployment of detection assays in case of epidemics
Name: Greet IevenFunction: CoördinatorOrganisation: University of AntwerpEmail: Greet.Ieven@uza.beBackground: Prof Greet Ieven, PhD, is professor at the faculty of medicine and chief of laboratory of medical microbiology at University hospital. She has long standing experience with the development and implementation of both conventional and molecular diagnostic tests in the clinical microbiology laboratory and has published her research in over 150 full papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and chapters in 10 books. She has been the Work package leader for bacterial genomics in the EC funded FP6 project GRACE. She was President of the European Study Group on Molecular Diagnostics of ESCMID from 2000-2010 and Scientific Advisory member of QCMD (Quality Control of Molecular Diagnostics).Tasks within WP: WP leader, overall coordination
Name: Marion KoopmansFunction: Liaison to WP3Organisation: Erasmus Medical Center, The NetherlandsEmail: m.koopmans@erasmusmc.nlBackground: Professor of Virology at the department of Viroscience of EMC and chief virologist of the laboratory for infectious diseases at RIVM, the national public health institute of The Netherlands. At RIVM she is responsible for the human virology reference laboratory within the Centre for Infectious Disease Control (CIDC). The laboratory is collaborating centre of the WHO on food and water safety. Marion has worked in public health since 1994, focusing on viruses that have the highest public health impact, in close collaboration with partners nationally and internationally. She has a veterinary background and has spent 3 years at the CDC Atlanta to train in public health oriented research.Tasks within WP: Liaison to WP3, the development of standardised serological tests for potentially epidemic viral pathogens and comparative seroprevalence study
Name: Christian DrostenFunction: Team memberOrganisation: UK- BonnEmail: drosten@virology-bonn.deBackground: Professor Christian Drosten is chairman of the Institute of Virology, which was founded with his election in 2007. Christian Drosten is the speaker of an initiative for a DFG-priority programme on ecology and species barriers in emerging viral diseases. He co-chairs the Thematic Translational Unit "Emerging infections" for the newly founded German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), where he is also a member of the internal advisory committee. He is also a member of the internal advisory board of the German national research platform for zoonotic diseases.Tasks within WP: Urgent design of “in house” based detection assays for newly detected viruses Protocols for rapid deployment of sample collection and sample transport
Name: Alex van BELKUMFunction: Team memberOrganisation: bioMérieux- FranceEmail: alex.vanbelkum@biomerieux.comBackground: Professor Alex van BELKUM was Head of the Unit Research and Development at the Erasmus university Medical Centre Rotterdam EMCR, Dept. of Medical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, Rotterdam between 2002 and 2010. From 2003 onwards he is (honorary) Professor of Molecular Microbiology at Erasmus MC. From 2010 to 2011 he worked for bioMérieux as R&D Director in the La Balme Microbiology Unit. Since 2011 Van Belkum is Corporate Vice President R&D Microbiology at bioMerieux (La Balme les Grottes, France). He there heads an international team of 130-150 researchers in the field of in vitro diagnostics in the field of primarily bacterial diseases. Overall, Alex van Belkum (co)authored over 440 PubMed-included manuscripts, over a hundred chapters in books and a variety of editorials, prefaces, letters etc which have been cited well over 18.000 times. Tasks within WP: Operational support in multiplex testing of WP3 samples in different clinical syndromes
Name: Geert MaertensFunction: Team memberOrganisation: BiocartisEmail: gmaertens@biocartis.comBackground: Dr. Geert Maertens (1962) obtained a Master’s degree in biology and a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Ghent in 1989 on engineered influenza hemagglutinin vaccines. Geert joined Innogenetics NV, a Belgian diagnostics company, in 1990 and headed the Infectious Diseases Business Unit, in which 20 MDx tests for HIV, HBV, HCV, and bacterial typing and resistance were developed and marketed. Geert joined Biocartis in 2009 as Chief Scientific Officer where he is responsible for the development of infectious diseases and oncology assays.Tasks within WP: Collaboration with WP4 in Influenza testing on Idylla RP1 platform