I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo. I completed my PhD at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge. My current research focuses on the analysis of pathogen genomic data and the development of analytical methods to understand the evolution and interaction of bacterial lineages within the host. In particular, I focus on the evolution of Streptococcus pneumoniae and the impact of drug and vaccine interventions on pneumococcal population structure.

A general practitioner by training, I also studied public health and got a PhD at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia in 2011. I’ve been working for Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City (PIHCM) since 1995-now, first as a public health officer on reporting communicable diseases, then I have moved to HIV/AIDS control and prevention field since 1997. I have been assigned Deputy Head of Department for Disease Control and Prevention of PIHCM since 2013, overseeing the HIV sentinel surveillance in southern provinces of Vietnam. Since 2016, I have been assigned another task as team leader of surveillance of non-communicable diseases, with a focus on hypertension and diabetes. Regarding research, I’ve involved in epidemiologic and behavioral studies related to HIV/AIDS, HPV and viral hepatitis. In 2020, I participated in a study of evaluation after responses (AAR) with regard to implementation of measures to control Covid-19. My role was to train the survey team on qualitative tools (Focus group discussion and In-depth interviews), moderate focus group discussion and analyze the qualitative component of data. I am coordinator of a trial of simplified schedules of pneumococcal vaccines in Ho Chi Minh City, funded by the Gates Foundation and in collaboration with MCRI. We completed recruitment of participants and data collection in 2020 and in the process of writing up final results. I hope to involve in another trial of HPV vaccines for risk groups, e.g. female sex workers and MSM in near future.

Dr Krzysztof Trzciński, is a microbiologist and Principal Investigator at the University Medical Centre Utrecht (UMCU) in the Netherlands. Before taking up the position of Associate Professor at UMCU he worked as a Senior Scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts. His main area of interest is Streptococcus pneumoniae, whether it be a respiratory pathogen, or human commensal. In his work, Dr Trzciński focuses on innate and acquired immune responses to natural colonization with S. pneumoniae, as well as mechanisms maintaining the diversity of pneumococcal capsular types (serotypes) circulating and causing disease in the human population. He is using both experimental and epidemiological approaches in his research. Currently, he is developing advanced methods for detection of pneumococcal colonization across all ages, and for studying multi-serotype carriage. With his work, Dr Trzciński aims to broaden our understanding of the interactions between S. pneumoniae and the host during colonization and infection and enhance the knowledge necessary to assess accurately the effects of preventative strategies targeting pneumococcal disease.

Irina Tsvetkova is a researcher at the Pediatric Research and Clinical Center for Infectious Diseases, Department of Medical microbiology and molecular epidemiology (Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation). Irina graduated from Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, Faculty of Biomedicine, in 2001. Irina defended her PhD thesis on "Genotypic characteristics of Streptococcus pneumoniae belonging to epidemic genetic lines (circulating in Russia)" in December 2021. Projects with Irina's contribution: Tsvetkova I.A. et al. Mechanisms of virulence regulation and global distribution of vaccine candidate antigens in the high virulent Streptococcus pneumoniae strains. // 12th International Symposium on Pneumococci and Pneumococcal Diseases (ISPPD-12), 2020. URL: https://cslide.ctimeetingtech.com/isppd20/attendee/eposter/poster/654 (article in progress). S. Sidorenko et al. Multicenter study of serotype distribution of Streptococcus pneumoniae nasopharyngeal isolates from healthy children in the Russian Federation after introduction of PCV13 into the National Vaccination Calendar. // Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease. 2020. Muraviov A.A. et al. The prevalence of circulating S. pneumoniae serotypes in people older than 18 years: healthy carriers, patients with acute otitis media, community-acquired pneumonia, and invasive pneumococcal infections (epidemiological study «SPECTRUM»). // Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. 2019. Tsvetkova I.A. et al. Clonality of Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates in Russia, circulating from 1980 to 2017. //Antibiotics and Chemotherapy. 2019.