Scientific Advisory Board

David Roblin MD FRCP FFPM FMedSci (SAB Chairman)

Professor David Roblin is currently Chief Executive Officer at Relation Therapeutics. Professor Roblin served as a Non-executive Director on the Destiny Pharma Ltd Board of Directors from 2011 until May 2017 and remains Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board.

He has also served recently as Chief Operating Officer, Chief Medical Officer and President of R&D at Summit Therapeutics plc, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Scientific Translation at the Francis Crick Institute in London from 2014 to 2017 and prior to that, Head of Research, Site Director and Chief Medical Officer for Europe R&D at Pfizer Inc. from 2008 to 2011. From 1997 to 1999, he was Head of Therapy Area for Anti-infectives at Bayer AG. Before entering the life sciences industry, Professor Roblin practised medicine for five years.

Through his career Professor Roblin has remained active in anti-infective R&D and he had key roles in the development of azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, moxiflxacin, selzentry and ridinilazole. Of note, he was a founder and director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative, which championed precompetitive research including into antibiotics.

Professor Roblin has a first class degree in biochemistry from University of London and later qualified in medicine from St George’s Hospital. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine and was recently elected as Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He is an honorary Professor of Medicine at Swansea University, Professor of Translational Medicine at St George’s and Chair of Scientific Translation at the Francis Crick Institute.  

Dale N. Gerding MD MACP FIDSA FSHEA

Dr Dale Gerding is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, Maywood, IL (retired) and Research Physician at the Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Affairs Hospital, Hines, IL where he maintains his active research laboratory. He is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases and a Master of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Society for Microbiology.

Dr Gerding’s long and distinguished career includes past president of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, past chair of the antibiotic resistance committee of SHEA and past chair of the National and Global Public Health Committee and the Antibiotic Resistance Subcommittee of IDSA. He was the recipient of the 2013 William S. Middleton Award. The Middleton Award is the highest honour awarded annually by the Biomedical Laboratory Research and Development Service to senior VA biomedical research scientists. In addition, he has been a Merit Review and Cooperative Studies funded research investigator in the US Department of Veterans Affairs for over 35 years.

In addition to authoring of over 450 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and reviews, he is a member of the editorial boards of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Gut Microbes, and Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.  

Dr Gerding discovered and developed the NTCD-M3 preventive treatment for C. difficile through its Phase 2 programme and in November 2020  he partnered NTCD-M3 with Destiny Pharma to complete the Phase 3 clinical study and commercialise the asset.

Richard Proctor MD

Richard A Proctor, MD is the Professor Emeritus of Department of Medical Microbiology/Immunology and Professor Emeritus of Department of Medicine at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Madison, Wisconsin. He also served as Global Director of Infectious Diseases for Merck Research for Antibiotics and Antifungals (2008-2010).

While his most recent work has focused upon many aspects of staphylococcal infections, he has spent more than two decades studying macrophage activation, basic immunology, and sepsis. Professor Proctor is a leading expert on bacterial pathogenesis of infectious disease.

He has been the Chairman of Medical Advisory Board at MicroPhage, Inc. Member of Scientific Advisory Boards for ConjuGon Inc., AmebaGon, BioSynexus, Destiny Pharma, Inhibitex Inc., and Telephus Medical LLC.

He serves on a number of panels addressing emerging antibiotic resistance and served as President of the Wisconsin Chapter of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He was also a founding member of the International Endotoxin Society and the co-founder of the Staphylococcal Diseases Gordon conference; served as President and councillor Alexander von Humboldt Association of America; recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Prize and the Harold P. Rausch Translational Research Award; recipient of the Commanding Officer’s Award for Research while attached to Walter Reed.

Vance Garrison Fowler Jr MD MHS

Professor Vance Fowler is a clinician scientist focused on clinical and translational research involving antibiotic-resistant bacteria. He is a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Molecular Genetics & Microbiology at Duke University Medical Center and for two decades he has focused on the diagnosis, treatment, and understanding of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA).

Professor Fowler created the Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia Group (SABG), a registry of clinical data, bacterial isolates, and patient DNA from ~2000 patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia. Using this resource, he addressed fundamental clinical questions involving Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia, including the risk of infectious complications and the importance of transesophageal echocardiography and the impact of bacterial characteristics on clinical outcome. Most recently, he is evaluating the role of host genetic characteristics in determining infection severity using a murine sepsis model and the patient DNA from the SABG cohort.

He co-founded the International Collaboration on Endocarditis, a prospective cohort of over 3000 patients from 28 countries with endocarditis. Using this resource, he made the critical observation that S. aureus is now the most common cause of endocarditis throughout much of the world. He has led important clinical trials testing new therapies for Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia, including a randomised, controlled trial comparing daptomycin to standard therapy.

Professor Fowler is currently the Corresponding Principal Investigator (PI) of the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group (ARLG), a $62 million NIH grant facilitated by the Duke Clinical Research Institute that develops, designs, implements, and manages a clinical research agenda to increase the ability to combat antibacterial resistance (AR). The ARLG, launched in 2013 with funding from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), aims to advance research by building transformational trials that will change clinical practice and reduce the impact of antimicrobial resistance.

Leonard Alan Mermel DO ScM AM(Hon) FACP FIDSA FSHEA

Dr Leonard Mermel was a Technical Expert Panel Member of the Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System, US Dept. of Health and Human Services. He was the 2005 President of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and the 2014 SHEA Mentor Scholar Award recipient which honours individuals who are recognised for their dedication and excellence in mentoring trainees in infection prevention and control.

He is the 2016 recipient of The Milton W. Hamolsky Outstanding Physician Award from the Rhode Island Hospital Medical Staff Association. He is a past recipient of the Ralph A. Kinsella, Sr. Memorial Tribute Award from St. Louis University Hospitals for outstanding qualities of work, leadership, and ability as a house staff officer, the SHEA Young Investigator Award, the Brown Medical School Department of Medicine Chairman’s Award for Outstanding Teaching, Brown Medical School Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Brown Medical School Certificate of Recognition for Exemplary Teaching.

Dr Mermel has co-authored US guidelines dealing with prevention and management of intravascular catheter infections and he has authored or co-authored over 300 articles, textbook chapters, and abstracts dealing with infection control and infectious diseases. Dr Mermel and Dr David Classen together developed the idea for the Compendium of Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections in Acute Care Hospitals which is now a standard guidance used in the United States and the basis for some of the National Patient Safety Goals. He is Co-Course Director of the Annual Fellows Course in Hospital Epidemiology & Infection Control. He has lectured at the National Institutes of Health, Institute of Medicine, NASA Johnson Space Center, and internationally on infectious disease issues. His research interest is the prevention of healthcare-associated infections.

Glenn J R Whitman MD

Dr Glenn Whitman is a Professor of Surgery, in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the Director of the CVSICU at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and has recently stepped down as the Director of Cardiac Transplantation, a position he held for the past 7 years. He received his medical degree from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, his cardiothoracic training at the University of Colorado, and has been in practice for more than 30 years.

In his role overseeing quality within the cardiac division at Hopkins, he has published on multiple critical care issues including early extubation postoperatively, blood utilisation, acute kidney injury, and in an area relevant to Destiny Pharma, postoperative infections.

Dr Whitman is the current Chair of the Workforce on Critical Care within the Society of Thoracic Surgery, and is recognised internationally as an expert on postoperative care of the cardiac surgery patient.

E Patchen Dellinger MD

Dr Patchen Dellinger is a board-certified surgeon at UW Medicine. Dr Dellinger was involved in the development of the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist, which was piloted at eight hospitals around the world, including the UW Medical Centre. He subsequently worked to bring the checklist to all operating rooms in Washington.

Dr Dellinger believes the doctor must teach the patient the nature of the patient’s condition, the options available to treat it, and the potential benefits and complications of any proposed treatment. The informed patient is in the best position to be a full partner in care, which increases the probabilities of a successful outcome.

Dr Dellinger’s clinical and research interests include patient safety, general and laparoscopic surgery, gastrointestinal surgery including gallbladder disease and fistulas, difficult and recurrent hernias and surgical infectious diseases.

Mark H Wilcox, MD, FRCPath

Professor Mark Wilcox has several current substantive roles including: a consultant microbiologist and the Head of Research and Development in Microbiology at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals (LTHT), where he is also the Infection Lead of Leeds NIHR Diagnostic Technologies Medical Technology and In Vitro Diagnostic Co-operative; Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Leeds; National Clinical Director of Antimicrobial Resistance for NHS Improvement/England (NHSE/I); and Lead on Clostridium difficile for Public Health England (PHE).

He serves in multiple advisory roles, including to UK SAGE (COVID-19), as co-chair of the UK Technical Validation Group for COVID-19 tests, as a medical advisor to the National Infection Prevention & Control Lead (NHSE/I), the Medical Research Council’s Infection and Immunity Panel, as Chair of PHE’s Rapid Review Panel (reviews the utility of infection prevention & control products for the NHS) and member of the UK NHS Antimicrobial Resistance Programme Board.

He was formerly the Director of Infection Prevention (4 years), Infection Control Doctor (8 years), and Clinical Director of Pathology (6 years) at LTHT and Head of Microbiology (15 years).

Professor Wilcox leads a Healthcare Associated Infection Research Group at the University of Leeds (https://medicinehealth.leeds.ac.uk/dir-record/research-groups/905/healthcare-associated-infection-research-group), comprising ~30 doctors, scientists and nurses.  Projects include multiple aspects of Clostridium difficile infection, diagnostics, antimicrobial resistance and the gut microbiome, infection prevention and control interventions, and the clinical development of new antimicrobial agents.  He has a track record of translational research (https://medicinehealth.leeds.ac.uk/medicine/staff/3541/professor-mark-wilcox), including providing the basis of clinical advice to the NHS.  He has been the Principal/UK Investigator for 16 clinical trials of new anti-infective drugs, 1999-2021.  He has authored >550 papers and published a number of books and chapters.  He is co-editor of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (5th/6th/7th Eds, 2007/12/15).