EBV-MS SAB (Scientific Advisory Board)
The EBV-MS Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) consists of Professors Gavin Giovannoni, Dasja Pajkrt, Paul Kellam and Associate Professor Claire Shannon-Lowe. All four are leading international experts on various aspects of EBV and MS.
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The SAB’s primary objective is to offer advice and guidance to the scientific management team on the project progress and its dissemination and exploitation activities. The board convenes annually with key researchers involved in the project, along with representatives from the European MS Platform and Italian MS society.
You can find short biographies of each SAB representative below.
Professor Gavin Giovannoni
Professor Gavin Giovannoni is a professor of Neurology. In 2006, he was appointed to the Chair of Neurology, Blizard Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London. Professor Gavin Giovannoni is an MS expert and researcher with over 30 years of experience in MS. His current research is focused on Epstein Barr virus as a possible cause of multiple sclerosis (MS), MS-related neurodegeneration, MS biomarker discovery, MS clinical outcome measures, MS clinical trials and immune tolerance strategies.
Professor Dasja Pajkrt
Professor Dasja Pajkrt is a professor of Viral Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers (Amsterdam UMC). She is Principal Investigator (PI) of the Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, and Co-head of the research group OrganoVIR Labs, where clinicians, virologists and tissue engineers work together to develop innovative animal-free models for virus research.
Professor Paul Kellam
Professor of Virus Genomics at Imperial College London and Vice President of infectious diseases & vaccines at Kymab Ltd, UK. At the Imperial College laboratory, Paul remains dedicated to its ongoing research theme, delving into virus and host genetic variation during infection. Meanwhile, at Kymab, Paul's work is focused on developing therapeutic antibody treatments of infectious diseases and to further advance vaccine research. Paul’s research has identified how HIV develops resistance to antiviral drugs and has identified the first influenza disease severity gene in people hospitalised with influenza virus. His laboratory produced the virus genome analysis of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS CoV) outbreaks.
Associate Professor Claire Shannon-Lowe
Dr. Claire Shannon-Lowe is an associate professor of Virology at the College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham. She has over 20 years of experience in virology research, and currently leads the virology teaching in the College of Medical and Dental Sciences. Her research has focused upon Epstein Barr virus, the first human virus shown to be associated with cancer. She has a long-term interest in a group of rare T cell and natural killer cell cancers driven by EBV.