Alessandro Sette is a Professor at the Center for Autoimmunity and Inflammation, and the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research at La Jolla Institute for Immunology. Professor Sette has overseen the design and curation efforts of the national Immune Epitope Database since its inception in the early 2000s.

Professor Sette's research has focused on the understanding of the immune response and development of disease intervention strategies against cancer, infectious diseases, autoimmunity and allergies. The Sette Lab uses epitopes as specific probes to define the immune signatures associated with productive/protective immunity versus deficient immunity/immunopathology.

www.lji.org/labs/sette

Prof. Antonio Bertoletti is an expert in the field of anti-viral immunity, with a specific interest in the immunopathogenesis of HBV infection. He is Professor in the Emerging Infectious Disease Programme at Duke–NUS Medical School, Singapore.

His current research is focused on the development of new immunological-based therapies (TCR-redirected T cells) for the treatment of HBV chronic infection and hepatocellular carcinoma, and on the characterisation of anti-viral immunity in chronic HBV patients. In the last 6 months, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, his laboratory has been actively involved in the characterisation of SARS-COV2 specific T cell immune response (Le Bert et al, Nature 2020, 584: 457-62) in COVID-19 and SARS convalescent and healthy individuals.

www.bertolettilab.com

Danny Altmann is Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, where he heads a lab at the Hammersmith Hospital Campus. Professor Altmann has acted in a range of roles during the pandemic in providing advice to policy-makers, including the House of Commons and House of Lords Science Committees. He has served for the past 20 years as editor across journals including Oxford Open Immunology, Immunology and Vaccine. He is a trustee of the Medical Research Foundation and a board member for the African Research Excellence Fund. He previously headed up strategy on infection, immunity and population health at the Wellcome Trust.

Professor Altmann’s research interests focus on the immunology of infectious diseases including severe bacterial infections, SARS-CoV-2, Zika virus and Chikungunya virus. His lab also uses tools such as the analysis of HLA polymorphism and the molecular immunology of T cell and NK cell subsets and antigen responses to characterise innate and adaptive immunity.

www.imperial.ac.uk/people/d.altmann

Helen Fletcher is Professor of Immunology at the LSHTM where she leads a TB vaccine research group. Prof Fletcher is also co-Editor of the journal Tropical Medicine and International Health, and in 2018, she joined UKRI on secondment as Director of International Development.

Professor Fletcher’s research interests are focussed on T cell immunology, global health, vaccine development in tuberculosis, melioidosis, leishmaniasis and leprosy, and on immune correlates of risk.

www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/people/fletcher.helen

Paul Moss is Professor of Haematology at the University of Birmingham, Deputy Head of the College of Medical and Dental Sciences, and an NIHR Senior Investigator. Professor Moss also leads the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium.

Professor Moss’s research interests focus on the application of translational immunological research in the study of human malignancies, with particular interest in haematological malignancies, tumour-associated antigens and T cell therapies to combat cytomegalovirus reactivation in immunocompromised patients.

www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/immunology-immunotherapy/moss-paul.aspx

Peter Openshaw is Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College London, an NIHR Senior Investigator, Director of the HIC-Vac consortium and a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences–British Society for Immunology expert taskforce on the immunology of COVID-19. He is also a member of the UK Vaccine Network and Vice-Chair of NERVTAG. Prof. Openshaw was previously President of the British Society for Immunology and has been a member of SAGE.

Professor Openshaw’s research interests focus on the pathogenesis of viral diseases, protective vs. pathogenic immunity and immune responses in old age. Most recently, Professor Openshaw is focusing on RSV and influenza in human patients, as well as mucosal sampling methods.

Prof. Openshaw is participating in the consortium on an independent basis, via Imperial Consultants.

www.imperial.ac.uk/people/p.openshaw

Shane Crotty is a professor at the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, and does media outreach on vaccines and immunity to infectious diseases. He is a member of the La Jolla Institute Coronavirus Taskforce, and the Crotty Lab’s COVID-19 research has informed vaccine efforts worldwide.

Professor Crotty’s research interests focus on immunity against infectious diseases, how the immune system remembers infections and vaccines, protecting the body against future infection, and the cellular and antibody response to virus, including SARS-CoV-2. Professor Crotty’s lab is also working on vaccine strategies for HIV, influenza and COVID-19.

www.lji.org/labs/crotty/

Tao Dong is Professor of Immunology at the University of Oxford, Program Leader for the MRC Human Immunology Unit, Founding Director of the CAMS-Oxford joint International Centre for Translational Immunology and Founding Director of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Oxford Institute.

Professor Dong’s research interests focus on the functional aspects of antigen-specific T cells and studying the factors affecting T cells in controlling virus infection and cancer development.

Prof. Rosemary Boyton heads the Lung Immunology Group, Adult Infectious Disease in the Department of Infectious Disease at Imperial College London, where she works on the molecular immunology of infectious, allergic and autoimmune inflammation through patient-based studies and transgenic animal models. Prof. Boyton studies the interplay between pathogen, host microbiota and innate and adaptive immune mechanisms in the regulation of inflammation, with a particular interest in T cell and NK cell responses, correlates of protection and vaccine studies. Key pathogens of research interest include: Burkholderia pseudomallei & cepacia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Aspergillus fumigatus, Zika virus, Chikungunya virus and SARS-CoV-2.

Prof. Boyton is an Honorary Consultant Physician in the Lung Division at Royal Brompton Hospital, and has specialist clinical expertise in acute and chronic respiratory infection affecting adult patients.

www.imperial.ac.uk/people/r.boyton

Dr Marcus Buggert is an assistant professor and group leader at the Centre for Infectious Medicine at the Karolinska Institute.

Dr Buggert’s research focuses on recirculating and resident memory CD8+ T cells in health and disease. Dr Buggert and his group are particularly interested in studying the heterogeneity of CD8+ T cells in human donor tissue, identifying alternative functions of CD8+ T cells and understanding their role in viral infection and cancer.

staff.ki.se/people/marbug