Prof. Dr. Michael Hoelscher, MD, FRCP(Lond)

Michael Hoelscher is the director of Global Health & Infectious Diseases at the Department for Infectious Diseases & Tropical Medicine at the Medical Center of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich. He studied Medicine in Munich and joint the Department of Infectious Diseases & Tropical Medicine thereafter. During his internal medicine and microbiology training he took several sabbatical leaves and worked at the US Walter-Reed-Institute and the Mbeya Referral Hospital in Tanzania. In 2010 he was appointed as Professor and Director of the Global Health & Infectious Diseases.

Prof. Stephen H. Gillespie MD DSc FRSE FRCP(Edin) FRCPath

Professor Gillespie was appointed at the Foundation Sir James Black Chair of Medicine at the University of St Andrews in 2010. His main research is to try to improve tuberculosis treatment and has published more than 200 papers in peer reviewed journals.  His work includes being the coordinating investigator for TB Alliance trials including REMoxTB, the first regulatory pivotal trial of two treatment-shortening regimens and the STAND trial. His current work in St Andrews includes research developing novel diagnostic assays including a molecular bacterial load assay that can quantify the number of live organisms in less than four hours and innovative drug susceptibility tests that speed the time to result more than 60 times.  He works closely with colleagues in applied mathematics and computer science to develop innovative agent based and network models of tuberculosis treatment.  He has developed a range of tools to determine the phenotypically antibiotic resistant cell state of M tuberculosis cells that may open new avenues for better treatment.

Prof. Martin J Boeree

Martin Boeree is Associate Professor in lung diseases, especially tuberculosis and non-tuberculous mycobacteria. He studied medicine at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and specialized as a pulmonologist at the University Medical Centre in the same town. He then went to Blantyre, Malawi in Africa to join the College of Medicine at the University of Malawi as a Senior Lecturer. He headed the Department of Medicine from 1996-2000. There, he built experience with the treatment and research of tuberculosis especially related to HIV. He served as advisor for the National TB Program. In 2000, he returned to the Netherlands where he joined the Department of Lung Diseases at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre. He was concurrently Director of the University Centre for Chronic Diseases and TB referral hospital Dekkerswald from 2005-2010. He was Chair for the Dutch Society of Tropical Medicine and the Federation of the European Societies of Tropical Medicine and International Health. He acts as one of the national consultants TB and NTM for KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation and the Dutch Thoracic Society. Martin Boeree has more than 150 publications focusing on drug treatment of tuberculosis and non-tuberculous mycobacterial infections. He was Chief Investigator of the HIGHRIF consortium within the PanACEA consortium focusing on the quest to find the “right” dose of rifampicine in its potential to shorten the duration of drug sensitive TB. He acts as Coordinator for the PanACEA II consortium.