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Get to Know the RESCEU Team! This month we talk to Joanne Wildenbeest from UMCU

 

Joanne Wildenbeest is a paediatric infectious diseases specialist at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, University Medical Center Utrecht.

Tell us about your professional career.
I am a paediatric infectious diseases specialist and researcher at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, University Medical Center Utrecht. I studied medicine at Ghent University in Belgium. After graduating I started my training in Paediatrics at the Academic Medical Center Amsterdam and specialized in Paediatric Infectious Diseases while obtaining my PhD, which was about viral infections in neonates and infants. Meanwhile I developed a special interest in vaccinology and worked as specialist advisor for vaccinations in children at the Centre for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, in the Netherlands. In 2016 I started to work at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, combining my work as clinician with the RESCEU project.
Can you please explain a bit about your role at UMCU as part of the RESCEU project?

Together with Louis Bont I am leading the clinical cohort studies of Work-Package (WP) 4.  The primary objective of the cohort studies is to determine the burden of RSV disease in healthy infants (the birth cohort study), community dwelling older adults (the older adults cohort study) and COPD patients (COPD cohort study). I have been  involved in the development of the study protocols, including the questionnaires and the sample collection plan for which we have worked closely together with WP 3 and WP 5. The clinical studies started in 2017. During the conduct of the studies regular teleconferences were held with the participating centers of each study to discuss recruitment and study progress and any issues that might arise. The older adults study has been finished and results will be published in the coming months. The birth cohort study and the COPD study are still ongoing. I am also the local principal investigator of the infant case-control study. I co-supervise 3 PhD students who are working on the RESCEU project.

How do you foresee the future of RSV infection after RESCEU project?

I expect that in the coming years an effective vaccine or treatment against RSV will become available. With the results of the RESCEU study we will be able to provide key information about the burden of RSV disease in healthy infants, older adults and COPD patients in Europe. This information will be important for regulators, governments and other stakeholders responsible for policy decisions regarding the implementation of new vaccines and therapeutics. RESCEU will also provide information about health care utilization and costs and societal impact. Results from the biomarker studies might aid the understanding of the mechanism for severe disease and long-term sequelae. I also hope that in the near future RSV related mortality and morbidity will be substantially diminished because of effective vaccination strategies, not only in developed countries, but also in developing countries.
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RESCEU Mid-Term Review

In February, IMI organised the Mid-Term Review of our project that took place in Brussels. A team of 20 people represented our consortium in front of our Project Officer, Isabella Tamagnini, and three reviewers: Dimitrios Athanasious, Dirk Jochmans and Tanel Tenson. During the meeting, a representative of each work package exposed their achievements and explained the risk circumstances that they have managed during the duration of the project.

In their final summary both the reviewers and our project officer were full of praise for RESCEU both for our scientific achievements, as well as for patient and public engagement and the positive team spirit that was evident to everyone. Of course, not everything is wonderful, and the reviewers have recommendations to make our project better.

Congratulations to the whole Consortium for accomplish this important milestone successfully!

Let’s keep the good work!
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Get to Know the RESCEU Team! This month we talk to Nicolas Voirin  from SP

 

 

Nicolas Voirin is founder and managing member of EPIMOD, a company providing applied research services in epidemiology and modeling of infectious diseases. As a scientist, his main interest is understanding infectious diseases epidemiology, prevention, treatment and control through statistical and mathematical modelling.

Tell us about your professional career.
I received training in biology, biomathematics, biostatistics, and epidemiology, and got my master’s degree dealing with HIV CD4 and viral load trajectories modelling, and my PhD on modelling hospital-acquired influenza, at Lyon University, France. My previous professional experience includes hospital-acquired infectious diseases epidemiology and biostatistics at Lyon Hospitals, cancer epidemiology at International Agency for Research on Cancer, and infectious diseases epidemiology and modelling (Influenza, Ebola, RSV, Gonorrhea and chlamydia, HIV, Malaria, HCV). In 2015, I founded EPIMOD, a human-sized company providing specialized applied research services in epidemiology and modelling of infectious diseases, working internationally with universities, NGOs, hospitals, ministries and other public and private institutions.
Can you please explain a bit about your role at Oxford Vaccine Group as part of the RESCEU project?

As part of the RESCEU project, I’m involved in the work package (WP) 3 aiming at efficiently use retrospective resources and analyse data from existing databases/networks in Europe. Concurrently with other WPs, WP3 aims at studying historically observed cost and resource consequences of RSV infection, using alternative approaches to establish and populate mathematical models of transmission and healthcare resource use. In this context, EPIMOD and I, as subcontractor of Sanofi Pasteur, participate actively in WP3 by developing dynamical mathematical models of RSV transmission and interventions impact, specifically suited for the EU populations. Based on the dynamic model, the direct and indirect effects of various, combined or not, immunization strategies can be estimated, and served as useful information for economic models.

How do you foresee the future of RSV infection after RESCEU project?

I think RESCEU is a unique opportunity to bring together researchers and decision makers, in order to catalyse and stimulate research on RSV. On the basis of this network, it is to be expected than an impressive structured knowledge and data will be generated and shared regarding RSV epidemiology, burden and economic impact. I hope that RESCEU will persist through the establishment of long-term academic and industry collaborations needed to provide patients of all age groups with effective prevention and treatment medicines.
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Prevention of Severe RSV in Infants: ongoing studies and vaccine strategies

Harish Nair, University of Edinburgh (UK), RESCEU Project Coordinator, and Louis J. Bont, University Medical Center Utrecht (NL), RESCEU Work Package Leader, have recently taken part in an Experts Panel Discussion on RSV, hosted by the platform Peervoice and endorsed by ReSViNET.

Together with Asuncion Mejias, from the Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, Ohio (USA), they discussed two topics extensively debated in severe RSV prevention: whether more consideration should be given to RSV prevention for premature babies born after the 29th week of gestation; and what the prospect of RSV vaccination is.

The Panel Discussion, currently available on the web provides an introduction to severe RSV morbidity and mortality, and discusses known and preventable risk-factors for RSV, as well as the economic burden this very common childhood infection entails.

The experts discussed the ongoing clinical studies related to RSV, including severity of disease in premature babies and the challenges in developing vaccines, especially for infants, such as the lack of a perfect animal model and babies’ immature immune system. The experience of the Formalin inactivated RSV vaccine trial in the 1960s was highlighted in this context, also in the light of the positive prospects shared across the scientific community on maternal immunization and a maternal vaccine for RSV.

More on RSV at: RESCEU and ReSViNET

Article by

Gabriella Russo