Kate O’Brien is the Director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals at the World Health Organization. Previously she was the Executive Director of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC), and Professor of International Health and Epidemiology, at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr O’Brien served on the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) committee from 2012 to 2018. Prior to joining IVAC, she served as the Director of Infectious Disease in the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health. She also served as an Epidemic Intelligence Officer, in the Respiratory Diseases Branch, at the CDC, Atlanta (USA). Dr O’Brien earned her BSc in Chemistry from the University of Toronto (Canada), her MD (Medicinæ Doctorem) from McGill University, Montreal (Canada), and her Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore (USA). She completed her paediatric and infectious disease clinical training at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore (USA).

Stephen Obaro MBBS, FWACP, MRCP(UK), FRCPCH, FAAP, PhD, FIDSA, FPIDSA is Professor of Pediatrics, Director of International Pediatric Research Program and Adjunct Professor with the Department of Microbiology and Pathology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He obtained his basic medical training at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he commenced his postgraduate training in Pediatrics before relocating to the United Kingdom. In addition to further training in clinical pediatrics, he obtained a PhD in Immunology at Imperial College, University of London. Upon completion of his clinical and graduate training immunology, he worked with the UK Medical Research Council Research Laboratories in The Gambia, as Head of Field Station where his team established surveillance program for pneumococcal disease in children that contributed substantive data to the formulation of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine for developing countries and the understanding of the epidemiology of invasive pneumococcal disease in children. He obtained additional postgraduate training in the US in general pediatrics at Pittsburgh Children Hospital and pediatric infectious disease fellowship at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. He has established field studies in Nigeria to understand the epidemiology of bacteraemic syndromes in children and the risk factors associated with these infections, through funding support from the National Institutes for Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is a trustee and co-founder of International Foundation Against Infectious Diseases in Nigeria (IFAIN), a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization that has established a platform for multidisciplinary projects in infectious disease and training for graduate students. The IFAIN laboratory network is also supporting research projects in Liberia, Ghana through the Joint West Africa Research Group (JWARG) and Rwanda.

Prof. Marco Rinaldo Oggioni is an expert in bacterial genetics and pathogenesis of infection. MRO has worked as Consultant Microbiologist for 20 years at the University Hospital in Siena (Italy), joined as Professor of Microbial Genetics in 2013 the University of Leicester (UK) and is since 2020 Professor at FaBiT at the University of Bologna (Italy).

Data Analyst and Health Promotion Specialist

Dr. Catie Oldenburg is an associate professor and infectious disease epidemiologist at the Francis I Proctor Foundation at the University of California, San Francisco. Her work focuses on randomized controlled trials of mass azithromycin distribution strategies for the prevention of childhood mortality and for trachoma control. Her research interests include the epidemiology of antibiotic use, antimicrobial resistance, and pediatric infectious disease.

I joined the PNG Institute of Medical Research as a Medical Laboratory Technician with certificate in Medical Technology in 1995. I went back to studies. In 2009, and completed my Bachelors in Medical Laboratory Science. I have worked in different studies conducted by the Institute in the infectious disease such as typhoid fever, HIV and sexual transmitted infection and paediatric meningitis. I have also worked with the two major pneumococcal conjugate vaccines trials (PCV7 and PCV10/13) conducted by the institute in the country and most part my time spend in the institute was involved with the vaccine trial. I was mainly processing and testing samples that can be done from these studies in the Immunology and Bacteriology laboratories. I have presented in in-house seminars, within the country had also done poster presentations at three ISPPD conferences. I have also co-authored on some publication on the work that I worked with. I am currently working as a Medical Technologist in the Bacteriology Laboratory in a study of neonates given probiotics within 72 hours after birth and each day up to the 7th day of their life and do follow ups to age 6 months.

Dr. Orihuela obtained his Bachelor of Science Degree from Baylor University in 1996. He subsequently earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston where he was a Kempner Scholar. From 2001 to 2005, Dr. Orihuela completed his postdoctoral research training in the Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis TN, and then returned to Texas in 2005 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. While at San Antonio, Dr. Orihuela was promoted with tenure to Associate Professor and was a recipient of the Presidential Junior Research Scholar Award, Distinguished Hispanic Faculty Award from the Graduate School, and the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging. In 2015, Dr. Orihuela joined the UAB Department of Microbiology, serving as its Vice-Chair for Faculty Development since 2019. In 2020, Dr. Orihuela was selected as a Distinguished Lecturer by the American Society of Microbiology. In 2021 he became an elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology for his work on the molecular basis of pneumococcal pathogenesis.

Andrea Orsi, born in Genoa on July 20, 1980, obtained a Master Degree in Medicine and Surgery, a Postgraduate Course Diploma in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine and the PhD in Epidemiology and Prevention (vaccine prevention address) at the University of Genoa. Since November 2019 he works as Associate Professor in General and Applied Hygiene at the Department of Health Sciences, University of Genoa. His main research interests concern the study of microorganisms applied to Hygiene and Public Health and especially to clinical and molecular epidemiology and the prophylaxis of communicable diseases of pre-eminent interest for Public Health. The main fields of research concern molecular epidemiology and virology applied to hygiene with particular attention to the study of molecular techniques aimed at preventing infections. These studies involved infectious diseases with a high social impact such as influenza, minor respiratory infections, viral hepatitis, infectious gastroenteritis, measles, rubella and congenital rubella. Other research fields concern the surveillance and control of Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) in the hospital setting and the surveillance and control of antimicrobial resistance. Prof. Orsi is the author of 114 scientific publications in peer-reviewed international journals, with 1850 citations and an H index of 23 (source Scopus).

A Senior Research Assistant working on the pneumococcus for 10+ years with a particular interest in identification and serotyping.