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Infection Studies

, –
Past
  • Free
  • Discussion
  • Speech-to-text
Claudia Hammond sitting in front of a standing microphone and wearing headphones smiling and clapping.
Claudia Hammond, Photo: Kathleen Arundell. Source: Wellcome Collection. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Join Claudia Hammond and a panel of scientists and experts as they discuss human infection studies.

The studies, or clinical trials, involve deliberately exposing volunteers to infectious diseases under carefully controlled conditions. They have the power to rapidly accelerate the development of much-needed vaccines and treatments for diseases such as malaria, typhoid, influenza, dengue and Covid-19.

Claudia will present the evening and interview the speakers. Then the audience will have the chance to ask questions afterwards. You can participate or just listen in.

The event will be recorded live with an audience and edited into a programme to be broadcast on the BBC World Service as part of ‘The Evidence’ series. After broadcast, episodes of ’The Evidence’ will be available on the BBC website.

Dates

, –
Past

Need to know

Location

We’ll be in the Reading Room on level 2. You can walk up the spiral staircase to the Reading Room door, or take the lift up and then head left from the Library Desk.

Place not guaranteed

Booking a ticket for a free event does not guarantee you a place. You should aim to arrive 15 minutes before the event is scheduled to start to claim your place. If you do not arrive on time, your place may be given to someone on the waiting list.

Waiting list

If this event is fully booked, you may still be able to attend. We will operate a waiting list, which opens 30 minutes before this event starts. Arrive early, and we’ll give you a numbered ticket. If there are any unfilled places just before the start time, we will invite you to enter in order of ticket number.

Speech-to-text

This event will be live-transcribed. The captions will be displayed on a screen in-venue.

For more information, please visit our Accessibility page. If you have any queries about accessibility, please email us at access@wellcomecollection.org or call

Our event terms and conditions

In partnership with

BBC World Service

Partner

The BBC World Service is the world’s largest international broadcaster. It broadcasts radio and television news, speech and discussions in more than 40 languages to many parts of the world.

Photographic black and white, head and shoulders portrait of Claudia Hammond.

Claudia Hammond

Presenter

Claudia Hammond is an award-winning broadcaster, writer and psychology lecturer. She is the presenter of ‘All in the Mind’ and ‘Mind Changers’ on BBC Radio 4, and ‘The Evidence’ and ‘Health Check’ on the BBC World Service.

Headshot of a man with short hair smiling and looking to camera

Chris Chiu

Speaker

Professor Chris Chiu is an infectious diseases doctor and immunologist. His research focuses on how respiratory viruses, such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza and SARS-CoV-2, cause infection in people and how our immune systems protect us from them. To understand why some people suffer life-threatening illness while others have only mild/asymptomatic disease, he has developed a set of unique experimental medicine techniques, exemplified by his role as Chief Investigator of the first SARS-CoV-2 human challenge study. In this way, his work enhances our understanding of how respiratory viral illnesses may be prevented and will accelerate the development of more effective vaccines.

Head and shoulders photograph of a man with long hair, glasses and facial hair looking to camera.

Kondwani Jambo

Speaker

Dr Kondwani Jambo is an associate professor of Immunology and Infection at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He also leads the Clinical and Experimental Medicine Theme at the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Research Programme. He has extensive experience in controlled human infection model (CHIM) studies in high- and low-income settings. Dr Jambo was an integral part of the team of scientists that established the first pneumococcal CHIM in the UK in 2010 and facilitated its transfer to Malawi in 2020. In 2023, the team successfully carried out the pioneering bacteria CHIM vaccine trial in Africa and is currently in the process of establishing a tuberculosis CHIM in Malawi.

Head and shoulders photograph of a woman with long hair, smiling and looking to camera.

Shobana Balasingam

Speaker

Shobana Balasingam is the Research Lead for the Human Infection Study Programme at Wellcome Trust, which has funded these studies to be established for diseases such as shigella, pneumococcus and malaria across Asia and Africa, as well as Covid-19 challenge studies in the UK. Shobana has over 20 years of experience with human infection studies, primarily with influenza and other respiratory viruses, gained while working at hVIVO Ltd. Before joining Wellcome, Shobana was based in Singapore at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, where the focus was to establish an influenza human infection study.