SATVI’s mission is the development of new and effective prevention strategies against tuberculosis (TB), including vaccination and biomarker-targeted treatment approaches. They are testing multiple new vaccine candidates in clinical trials; and are involved with projects to address critical clinical, epidemiological, immunological and human genetic questions in TB pathogenesis and vaccine development. Activities are within an academic context, and thus include the training of postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
The team of over 100 staff consists of specialists in clinical, epidemiological, human immunology and systems biology, clinical trials, community liaison, recruitment, and follow-up; data management and analysis, disease surveillance, information technology, clinical evaluation and care of study participants; facility management, laboratory technology, logistics, research pharmacy management, project management, regulatory affairs, administration, study coordination and training.
Tom Scriba’s particular interests focus on understanding the immunopathology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and TB disease developing correlates of risk and immunological correlates of protection against TB.