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Tim McHugh’s work focuses on respiratory disease with particular emphasis on tuberculosis, with projects that cover the spectrum of activity from transcriptomic analysis of responses to drug treatment through to clinical and operational research in hard to reach communities. The Centre contributes at each end of the anti-tuberculosis drug development pipeline; at one end screening novel compounds for activity and exploring the mechanism of action whilst at the other end of the pipeline providing expertise and infrastructure for the delivery of TB treatment trials. A key element of this work is supporting the development of appropriate laboratory facilities for the handing of high risk pathogens. An important element of his work is capacity development, the Centre provides training for laboratory scientists both on site and in London.

Dr Norbert Heinrich is a board certified paediatrician, who has field work experience in Mchinji District, Malawi. He joined University of Munich in 2008, when the PanACEA consortium was starting up, to become a senior scientist in tuberculosis treatment and diagnostic studies. He acted as sponsor medical expert for the SQ109 EBA and the PanACEA MAMS TB 01 study, and is now coordinating LMU’s team in the PanACEA studies, but also in the AIDA study to validate new diagnostics, under the leadership of Prof. Michael Hölscher. In addition to TB, Dr Heinrich is pursuing research in the field of febrile illness, within the German Center for Infection Research; maintaining the strong partnership that exists between the NIMR-Mbeya Medical Research Centre, and LMU within these networks. To support career development of African scientists in joint projects, Dr Heinrich supervised four PhD students to successful graduation to date.

Prof. Ian Matthias Sanne is a native South African and HIV Clinical Researcher who recently was elected as International Vice-Chair of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. His research focuses on providing observational and prospective research to inform prevention and treatment strategies in HIV and TB in resource poor settings, with scientific contributions to the optimization of treatment strategies, improved diagnostics and public health interventions for HIV and Tuberculosis leading to over 100 publications. At the intersection of clinical care and clinical trial administration, will offer his expertise from his experience as the founding Director and Chief Executive Officer of Right to Care, a large PEPFAR and Global Fund supported non-profit organization. He has served in a number of leadership roles, both in research and implementation of clinical treatment services. Since 2003, he led the Wits HIV Research Group as CTU Principal Investigator.

He is the Executive Secretary/CEO of the East African Health Commission www.eahealth.org appointed by the Council of Ministers of the East African Community www.eac.int and he is a professor of medicine at KCMC, Tanzania.

Gibson Kibiki graduated in medicine (MD) in Bulgaria in 1996. He specialized in internal medicine (MMed) in Tanzania in 2003. Between 1998 and 2005 he undertook training programmes in interventional and advanced endoscopy (bronchoscopy, and digestive system endoscopy) in Germany, the Netherlands, and USA. He conducted a series of bronchoscopy-based (basic and clinical) research on co-infection between pulmonary Tuberculosis and Human Immunodeficiency Virus for his PhD thesis, which he completed in 2006 and was awarded a PhD in Medical Sciences at Radboud University, The Netherlands.

Throughout his career he has been immensely involved in clinical services, academics, research, capacity building, and management in the health sector: he established the first in the region endoscopy unit for advanced endoscopic treatment at KCMC, he led the establishment of Kilimanjaro Clinical Research Institute www.kcri.ac.tz as an academic centre for evidence based-medical interventions, he has supervised/mentored more than 70 MSc, MMed, PhD, and Post-Doc fellows from Tanzania and from overseas universities. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers. He served as an adjunct Professor at the University of Virginia, USA, and a visiting Lecturer for the Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (DTM&H) course at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. He is a PhD supervisor for Radboud University in the Netherlands, and KCMC in Tanzania. He serves as an external examiner for PhD candidates for various overseas universities.

Prof Kibiki is a member of the Executive Group of PanACEA consortium and a member of various expert committees e.g. the Expert Advisory Panel of the European COMPARE Consortium; Advisory Board of THRiVE consortium, Clinical Trials Technical Committee of Tanzania FDA, member of Data Safety Monitoring Boards of various clinical trials in TB, and HIV. He has led various regional and international research consortia.

Prof Diacon leads Task Applied Science and Task Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa. TASK is an institution specializing in clinical and microbiological TB research and particularly first-time evaluation of novel antibiotics in tuberculosis patients. The TASK clinical team has research sites in the community, at TB hospitals and at a private hospital specialized in tuberculosis research. The laboratory team aims at validating and improving markers for tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment effects.

Amongst other achievements, Prof Diacon was awarded a Rector’s Award for Outstanding Research at Stellenbosch University, the Swiss TB Research Award and the Scientific Prize from the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease for his exceptional contribution towards research.

Associate professor Rod Dawson is the Managing Director of the University of Cape Town Lung Institute (UCTLI). He is also the Clinical Research Unit Head of the Centre for Tuberculosis Research Innovation (CTBRI) at the UCTLI. Prof Dawson is a Consultant Pulmonologist and holds the position of Honorary Senior Consultant in the Division of Pulmonology Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town. He was elected to the Board of the UCT Lung Institute in 2012 and was appointed Managing Director of the UCTLI since 2016.

The Centre for Tuberculosis Research Innovation was established by Prof Dawson in 2008 and is now established as a leading high volume research site for investigational studies for new drugs in TB and HIV, having conducted more than 30 pivotal TB treatment studies. Prof Dawson’s main research interests are: New TB drug development, Counselling interventions to improve compliance in Drug resistant TB (DR-TB), Standardized chest radiography reading and Interventional TB and HIV cohort studies. Prof Dawson has established an extensive collaborative research network and manages two prospective research cohorts including the “Longitudinal Pulmonary HIV” and the “TB Bio-storage” cohorts, that have established the basis of a novel self-funded research program which has supported 2 PhD students. He has published 54 manuscripts in PubMed-listed international peer reviewed journals. Prof Dawson’s total citation count on 1st May 2017 is 1976 with a Scopus h-Index of 26.