About
As the Program Leader of the Diagnostic program at PATH, I have over 10 years of experience in developing diagnostic tools and technologies for use in low resource settings. I work with academic groups, startup companies, multinational companies and local and national health laboratories and disease programs in the pursuit of projects from landscaping, early assay development and verification through to field testing and product release. I have led the R&D of such assays funded via a variety of donors (including the NIH) and have informed the scientific community via reviews on platforms for HIV treatment monitoring, TB diagnostics, nucleic acid–based diagnosis of TB and infectious diseases, point of care tools and micronutrients. I successfully manage large projects and budgets in a highly matrixed group of multidisciplinary collaborators and partners from industry, academia, public health agencies and donors and key stakeholders across four continents. For the environmental surveillance of polio project, I currently lead groups from the US, South Africa, Kenya and Pakistan (Pak NIH, national emergency operations committee, WHO program, Pakistan polio program) to verify and validate methodologies to identify poliovirus in wastewater. Allied to this is down selecting commercial partners to manufacture the tool and continual engagement with key stakeholders from the BMGF, WHO, US CDC and Europe (RIVM). As the Leader of the Diagnostic Program, I represent the capabilities of a 30 strong multidisciplinary team with expertise in diagnostic development, user experience, field studies, commercialization and administrative support.