AMR Team

Senior Research Fellow

Aislinn Cook

Aislinn is a Senior Research Fellow in infectious disease epidemiology in the antimicrobial resistance team in CNPI and has been a part of the group for the past 5 years. Most of her work focuses on the antibiotic treatment and outcomes of neonatal sepsis and paediatric bloodstream infections and optimising empiric prescribing guidelines. Aislinn also works on projects looking at national and primary care antibiotic use data to inform policies and guidelines.

Alongside her work at SGUL, Aislinn is pursuing a PhD at University of Oxford modelling primary care antibiotic use data the aim of developing a set of tools that can inform national antibiotic prescribing targets based on clinical infection burden.
Aislinn received her MSc in Control of Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and her BSc in Biology and Public Health from Tufts University in Boston, USA.

Senior Lecturer

Julia Bielicki

Julia Bielicki is a pediatrician and a researcher at St George’s University of London and the University Children’s Hospital Basel and holds a Masters of Public Health and PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Julia was part of the core team of the Antibiotic Resistance and Prescribing in European Children project, one of the largest international collaborations on antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance in children to date. Her current research focuses on observational and interventional studies that aim to improve childhood antibiotic use in the light of an increasing burden of antimicrobial resistance and the need to conserve antibiotics for future generations. She is involved in several strategic randomized trials investigating optimal antibiotic use in children suffering from pneumonia and in neonates with sepsis. Julia is also leading the NeoIPC programme aiming to identify and implement best infection prevention and control practices in neonatal units.

Research Data Analyst

Filip Djukic

Within Canada, graduated with a Bachelor of Respiratory Therapy (BRT), and worked clinically as a Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) in specific fields such as paediatric critical intensive care and anaesthesiology. Graduated with a Masters (MSc.) in Translational Medicine at St George’s, University of London.

Research Data Analyst for the Centre for Neonatal and Paediatric Infection (CNPI) group.

Current projects: GAPf (Global Accelerator for Paediatric Formulations)

Consultant

Malte Kohns

Research data analyst

Daniel Tsai

Daniel’s research mainly utilises big data to evaluate medication use, particular in patients with mental illness or infectious disease. He has also developed methods to evaluate paediatrics rare diseases.

Projects
1.WHO project – Accelerate paediatric medicine development: Providing better medicines to children faster
2.ESPID project – What is the burden, prophylaxis and treatment of neonatal invasive candidiasis in low- and middle-income countries?

Publications
1.Tsai, Hsiang-Te & Chang, Wei-Hung & Lai, Edward Chia-Cheng. (2021). Assessment of antipsychotic use and other predictors associated with mortality in patients with delirium: A population-based nested case control study.
2.Yao, Shu-Hui & Tsai, Hsiang-Te & Lin, Wen-Lin & Chen, Yu-Chieh & Chou, Chiahung & Lin, Hsiang-Wen. (2019). Predicting the serum digoxin concentrations of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit through an artificial neural network. BMC Pediatrics.

Additional affiliations – National Cheng Kung University, Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Taiwan

Research Coordinator

Elia Vitale

My interest in research began when I was given the opportunity to cover a maternity leave post for a South London company. After this experience, I kept cultivating my interest in research and maintained my GCP training up to date. I subsequently took up a Research Nurse post that became available within the then called Paediatric Infectious Diseases Research Group (PIDRG). In that position, I particularly enjoyed anything having to do with data. In time, I was asked to become part of the remote monitoring team for a large study. I then had the opportunity to manage the nursing team within the same group. Currently I am working as a Research Coordinator in the ever-growing PIDRG, which has now become the Centre for Neonatal and Paediatric Infection (CNPI). Among other tasks, I have had the chance to do a bit of project managing as well as monitoring different European sites participating in the ADEQUATE study. This has now become my main work activity. I also enjoy being part of the GCP training course facilitator group for South London Clinical Research Network (SLCRN).

Senior Lecturer

Catrin Moore

Dr. Catrin Moore’s research focuses on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), often termed the silent pandemic, which is on the increase in many LMICs. Dr. Moore has worked in the Global health arena for over twenty years, she was based in South East Asia running microbiology laboratories for six years. She led the Global Research on AntiMicrobial resistance (GRAM) project in the Big Data Institute in Oxford, partnering with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle and Tropical Medicine in Oxford, to estimate the global burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Dr Moore is a member of the World Health Organization Advisory Group on Critically Important Antimicrobials (AG CIA) for Human Medicine and is a mentor for Fleming Fund Fellows based in Eswatini. Dr. Moore works on studies to improve the use of diagnostic tools, training, and communication in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) focussing on implementing interventions and policy to reduce AMR. She is now based at St George’s, University of London working closely with researchers in a number of LMICs, working on the Antimicrobial Resistance, Prescribing, and Consumption Data to Inform Country Antibiotic Guidance and Local Action (ADILA) project.

Recent publications:
Murray C, et al. Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis. The Lancet, 2022, Jan; 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02724-0.
Henry NJ, Elagali A, Nguyen M, Chipeta MG, Moore CE. Variation in excess all-cause mortality by age, sex, and province during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Sci Rep, 2022 Jan; 12(1); 1077. Doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-04993-7.

Browne AJ, Chipeta MG, Haines-Woodhouse G, …Moore CE, et al. Global Antibiotic Consumption in Humans, 2000 to 2018: A Spatial Modelling Study. Lancet Planetary Health 2021, Nov 11:S2542-5196(21)00280-1. Doi: 10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00280-1.

Lythgoe KA, Hall M, Ferretti L, de Cesare M, MacIntyre-Cockett G, …Moore, CE et al. SARS-CoV-2 within-host diversity and transmission. Science, 2021; 372 (6539) eabg0821. Doi: 10.1126/science.abg0821.

Salami O, Horgan P, Moore CE, Giri A, Sserwanga A et al. Impact of a package of diagnostic tools, clinical algorithm, and training and communication on outpatient acute fever case management in low- and middle-income countries: protocol for a randomized controlled trial. BMC Trials, 2020; 21 (974); 1-13. Doi: 10.1186/s13063-020-04897-9

Basnyat B, Salami O, Karkey A, Moore C, Giri A, Olliaro P. The Impact of Covid-19 on Health Delivery and Research in South East Asia. BMJOpinion (blog). September 2020.
Moore CE. Changes in antibiotic resistance in animals. Perspectives comment invited by Science, 2019. Science. 2019 Sep 20;365(6459):1251-1252. Doi: 10.1126/science.aay9652.

Schnall J, Rajkhowa A, Ikuta K, Rao P, Moore CE. Surveillance and monitoring of antimicrobial resistance: limitations and lessons from the GRAM project. BMC Med. 2019 Sep 20;17(1):176. Doi: 10.1186/s12916-019-1412-8.

Young BC, Earle SG, Soeng S, Sar P, Kumar V, …Moore CE. Panton-Valentine leukocidin is the key determinant of Staphylococcus aureus pyomyositis in a bacterial genome-wide association study. Elife. 2019 Feb 22;8. pii: e42486. Doi: 10.7554/eLife.42486.

Limmathurotsakul D, Dunachie S, Fukuda K, Feasey NA, Okeke IN,…Moore CE, et al.; Surveillance and Epidemiology of Drug-Resistant Infections Consortium (SEDRIC). Improving the estimation of the global burden of antimicrobial resistant infections. Lancet Infect Dis. 2019; Aug 16. pii: S1473-3099(19)30276-2. Doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(19)30276-2.

Research Project Co-ordinator

Caroline Albrecht

Caroline is a research project co-ordinator currently working on NeoSep1.

Senior Research Project Manager

Jennifer Martin

Primarily supporting the Neonatal and Paediatric AMR Team managing and co-ordinating research projects, working closely with global partners & collaborators.

Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases

Mike Sharland

Professor Mike Sharland is a globally leading expert in antimicrobial prescribing, resistance and healthcare associated infection in children. He is the lead clinical advisor for the neonatal and paediatric programme of the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) and Vice-Chair and AMR lead of the Penta Foundation, a global Paediatric Infectious Diseases research network.

He has Chaired the Department of Health’s National Expert Advisory Committee of Antimicrobial Prescribing, Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection (APRHAI) from 2011 to 2018. He has also been an advisor for the WHO for many years, including being a member of the Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines and the Chair of the Antibiotic Working Group of the EML/EMLc, which developed the Access/Watch/Reserve (AWaRe) grouping of antibiotics.

Prof Sharland’s principal research interest is optimising the best use of antimicrobials in children. He has a long standing interest in developing the evidence base for the use of all paediatric antimicrobials and has developed a clear research strategy using both cohort studies and clinical trials to improve the evidence base for antimicrobial prescribing. He leads a wide number of clinical projects in the globally with active EDCTP, EU H2020, GARDP, NIHR, MRC, Wellcome Trust funding.

Technical Consultant & Project Manager

Michael Thorn

Michael is a technical consultant and project manager working on the ADILA project. His role within this project is to create a geospatially-aware PostgreSQL database to store AMR and AMU data and to then create and manage data pipelines to process, curate, and disseminate these data.

He graduated in Applied Biology at the University of Bath in 1989 and had a subsequent career in information technology within the higher education sector. He worked first at Oxford Brookes University and then at the University of Oxford, building databases and applications to support administrative processes. These included bespoke student record and human resources systems. Over time, he moved into more senior roles, with his ultimate position at IT services at the University of Oxford being Head of Systems Support and Maintenance.

In 2015, Michael joined the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP – www.malariaatlas.org/), which was at the time based in the University of Oxford. He ran a multi-disciplinary team of database designers, computer programmers, map-makers, and research assistants gathering, preparing, and curating the data required for MAP’s geospatial modelling projects.

When MAP relocated to Perth, Western Australia in 2019, Michael joined the GRAM project at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute, working with Dr. Catrin Moore to create a geospatially-aware PostgreSQL database to store AMR data.

In January 2021, Michael joined the UK Biobank (University of Oxford) working for Professor Naomi Allen. Michael was responsible for the strategic direction of participant tabular data management as well has running UK Biobank’s two teams of data analysts.

Michael joined the ADILA project at the end of September 2022.

Project Manager

Jan Goelen

Jan joined the CNPI in January 2023 as Project Leader for ADILA and ADILA-associated projects.   

Jan graduated in 2018 from Ghent University in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Drug Development specialising in biopharmaceutics. He undertook his Masters research in Microbiology during an Eramus+ exchange with St George’s, University of London (SGUL). He obtained the title of pharmacist upon graduation in 2018.   

He undertook a PhD under supervision of Prof. Hannah Batchelor and Dr Richard Horniblow in oral paediatric biopharmaceutics. For his PhD project, Jan characterised various gut parameters that influence drug absorption, including fluid within the colon (using MRI) or quantifying drug transporters and metabolising enzymes via LC-MS/MS. Then, Jan investigated how these parameters affect drug absorption in children using in silico PBPK modelling.   

His research interests include paediatric physiology, oral drug absorption and metabolism via PBPK modelling, biopharmacy and age-appropriate medicines for the paediatric cohort. Jan is student member of the APS and won the Young Scientist Award at the 12th and at the 13th EUPFI conferences

Research Data Analyst

Will Cuningham

Will began studying epidemiology during a Master of Science at The University of Melbourne. He became particularly interested in infectious diseases and worked as a research assistant at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity before moving to the tropical north of Australia to complete a PhD on the surveillance and burden of antibiotic resistance at the Menzies School of Health Research. At the end of 2022, Will joined the Centre for Neonatal and Paediatric Infection at St George’s, University of London, working as a research analyst on the ADILA project that aims to use antibiotic resistance, prescribing and consumption data to inform local action. Will is passionate about optimising the use of existing data resources to help inform decision making and reduce health inequalities.

Scientific Communications and Engagement Officer

Lauren Wallis

I support all teams across the CNPI to raise awareness of scientific outputs and current research, share the Centre’s vision, and shape engagement with the public and external collaborators on adult, paediatric, and neonatal research.

Programme Manager

Yasmine Yau

Yasmine is the Programme Manager for the AMR team in the Centre for Neonatal and Paediatric Infections at St George’s, University of London; with over ten years of experience in Research and healthcare across various settings, research and clinical trials.

Currently, she manages the AMR team to deliver an extensive global programme of research studies, including international, multi-centre, observational and clinical trial research studies; with a focus on global neonatal and paediatric antimicrobial resistance.

Yasmine is currently undertaking a part-time, long-distance Masters in Global Health Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with an aim to help shape health policy and ensuring a better quality of life for all populations worldwide.

Adam Witney

Louise Hill

Neal Russell

Yingfen Hsia

Shrey Mathur

Emily Beales

Laura-Ferreras-Antolin