MLW has been at the leading edge of pneumococcal science for the past 20 years, growing to a world-leading collaborative group which includes hospital based studies, controlled hu-man infection model (CHIM), pathogen genom-ics, mucosal immunity, community surveillance and large vaccine studies with synergistic sup-port from two MRC programme grants. We have described the burden of pneumococcal disease by syndrome in adults and children and the critical interaction with HIV. Serotype specific protection was shown in HIV infected adults using conjugate vaccine. MLW sci-entists advised GAVI in the Malawi introduc-tion of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in 2012 and established a national net-work for infant vaccine programme evaluation. Recent discovery science has identified key characteristics of the bacteria that control recombination in the genome and shown specific pneumococcal genes associated with progression from sepsis to meningitis with recombinant protein vaccines derived from these genes able to protect murine models from meningitis. The CHIM model has allowed efficient vac-cine testing and given unique insight into the mucosal regulation of carriage and lung defence, nasal microbiota regulation and pulmonary response to vaccination.
(PIs: Gordon S, French)