Dr Frank Verreck is responsible for the TB Research & Immunology programme and since 2010 deputy chair of the department of Parasitology at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC) in the Netherlands. Through international networks and collaborations with TBVI and Aeras his team contributes to the preclinical evaluation of new vaccines for TB in non-human primate models.
Trained as a biologist/biochemist and with a PhD in immunology he investigated molecular aspects of HLA-restricted antigen processing and presentation at Leiden University and the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ). He investigated functional macrophage polarisation and innate anti-TB immunity, again at Leiden University, before joining BPRC in 2003.
While using and refining non-human primate models for vaccine evaluation in general and for TB therapies in particular, fundamental research focuses on the identification of correlates of protection through investigating cellular and molecular aspects of innate and adaptive anti-mycobacterial host defense in the primate host.
