Awards
The Robert Austrian Research Awards in Pneumococcal Vaccinology
To honour the memory of Robert Austrian for his pioneering and immensely important research on pneumococci and pneumococcal diseases, the ISPPD board announces its intention to award the Robert Austrian Research Awards in Pneumococcal Vaccinology and has defined the research topics and criteria for the selection of award recipients. Based on these criteria, a subcommittee, consisting of ≥3 members of the ISPPD Board will propose the award recipients to the full ISPPD Board for approval. Recipients of the Robert Austrian Research Awards in Pneumococcal Vaccinology will be selected on the basis of an application detailing career achievements and a research proposal.
In this round, up to ten Robert Austrian Research Awards in Pneumococcal Vaccinology ≤$25,000 USD each will be sponsored by Pfizer. Pfizer has selected the International Society of Pneumonia and Pneumococcal Diseases, ISPPD, to manage the Robert Austrian Research Awards in Pneumococcal Vaccinology. Payments will only be made to the administering (i.e. host) institution and not to individuals, and will be made by wire transfer. ISPPD takes no responsibility for the further administration or use of the funds beyond the point of disbursement. The award recipients are expected to submit a short final report within two years of being awarded, and to present their results at the following ISPPD Meeting, ISPPD-14, in Copenhagen (2026). It is also anticipated that their award, bios/photo and the final report will be posted on the ISPPD website.
The winners from the second round of 2024 RARA applications will be announced online, and we may have the opportunity to further acknowledge this outstanding achievement at future ISPPD meetings such as the ISPPD-14 Meeting in Copenhagen (2026).
2024 RARA Winners – First Round
Sophie Belman
Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Barcelona, Spain
Investigating the compound effects of air quality, meteorology, and pathogen population genetics on pneumococcal disease in a Bayesian hierarchical framework
Laura Boelsen
Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Changes in circulating pneumococcal AMR following vaccine introduction in the Asia-Pacific
Akuzike Kalizang’oma
Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme, Blantyre, Malawi
Identifying and characterising the reservoir of capsule biosynthesis loci encoding novel serotypes in Streptococcus mitis that may drive vaccine escape by Streptococcus pneumoniae
Chikondi Peno
Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme, Blantyre, Malawi
The inter-relationship between respiratory microbiota and pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) immune responses in infants
2024 RARA Winners – Second Round
Giovanna de Brito Carneiro
Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, Brazil
CyaA vector carrying fragments of the PspA antigen: towards the development of a broad-coverage pneumococcal vaccine.
Patrícia Conceição Gonzalez Dias Carvalho
University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
Advancing Pneumococcal Vaccine Development: Machine Learning to Identify Correlates of Protection Against Serotype 3 colonisation.
Samuel T. Horsfield
EMBL-EBI, Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
Developing and deploying a comprehensive database and web-based AI tool for accurate rapid pneumococcal serotyping from genomic data.
Absalom Janssen
University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland
Repopulating the Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine pipeline through CRISPRi-Seq-mediated identification of novel capsule-independent vaccine candidates.
Kenichi Takeshita
University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, United States
Studies on the molecular pathogenesis of vaccine-escape Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 3 strains in the lung
Nadesh Ashukem Taku
Cameroon Academy of Sciences, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Assessing the impact of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccines on antibiotic non-susceptible invasive pneumococcal disease among Cameroonian children
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Young Investigator Award
ISPPD will grant abstract awards to young investigators presenting their abstracts during the ISPPD-14 Symposium in Copenhagen, Denmark. The goal of this award is to inspire young investigators to continue research on pneumococci and pneumococcal diseases by recognizing outstanding scientific investigations.
2024 YOUNG INVESTIGATOR AWARD WINNERS
Feroze Ganaie, United States
DISCOVERY OF A NOVEL PNEUMOCOCCAL CAPSULE TYPE 33E THAT HAS EMERGED FROM VACCINE TYPE 33F VIA A SINGLE GENE INACTIVATION AND MAY EVADE 33F-INDUCED IMMUNITY
Dennis Hoving, Netherlands
PNEUMOCOCCAL IMMUNIZATION AND SEROTYPE-SPECIFIC B CELLS: INTEGRATING IMMUNIZATION METHOD AND RISK OF COLONIZATION WITH CELLULAR FREQUENCY AND PHENOTYPE
Jackie Kleynhans, South Africa
LABORATORY-CONFIRMED INVASIVE PNEUMOCOCCAL DISEASE IN SOUTH AFRICA AFTER THE SARS-COV-2 PANDEMIC
Lusako Sibale, Malawi
WITHIN-HOST PNEUMOCOCCAL SEROTYPE 3 GENETIC DIVERSITY AND EVOLUTION DURING A ONE-YEAR PROLONGED CARRIAGE EPISODE IN A HEALTHY ADULT
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Travel Grants
ISPPD will award Travel and/or Participation Grants in the ISPPD-14 Symposium. The Travel Grant will be awarded to selected applicants who fulfil the specified criteria.
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SECOND ROUND OF RARA APPLICATIONS IS NOW CLOSED!
SECOND ROUND OF RARA APPLICATIONS IS NOW CLOSED!