December 3, 2020, 3.30PM-4.30PM CET
Peter Warn is an experienced antimicrobial discovery scientist and consultant with a long and successful record of working in the anti-infective discovery industry. His expertise goes from antimicrobial development (antibacterial, anti-fungal, anti-parasitic and anti Mtb), including in vitro, and animal models from basic models through to PKPD and assisting in program design from discovery through to IND and beyond. Peter has also broad experience on grant writing and collaborations with large Pharma, biotechs, and virtual companies focused on Infectious diseases. Since March 2020, Peter has been working on COVID diagnostics, and is now part of the UK Department of Health’s leadership team tasked with a large ramp up in COVID diagnostics – namely, via the Mega Labs project (two labs capable of testing 300,000 samples each per day).
For more information about this session, please contact Frederik Deroose, COMBINE Portfolio Manager: deroosefrederik@gmail.com.
Animal models are pivotal in TB and NTM research and are used when mimicking human infectious diseases in a complex host. During his presentation, Peter covered an in-depth review of animal models of M. tuberculosis and Nontuberculous mycobacteria including multiple animal species but with close focus on the murine models that are generally more accessible. Drug and vaccine development, identification of biomarkers, understanding of TB and NTM immunopathogenesis and host genetic influence on infection have all utilised animal models in their core research. Whilst it was not possible to cover all these model types in detail, Peter explored key features and model outputs. Finally, the presentation discussed tips, hints and pitfalls when trying to generate informative data using animal models in TB research along with their advantages and limitations.
