Professor Gregory Bancroft

Greg Bancroft has over 30 years of experience working in the field of infection and immunity.  Greg’s current research relates to understanding the mechanisms of pathogenesis and the development of novel vaccines against two important pathogenic bacteria, M. tuberculosis and B. pseudomallei.  His work in tuberculosis relates to the pre-clinical evaluation for candidate live attenuated TB vaccines through the EU. This is a critical go-no go decision step in the development of the many live attenuated TB vaccines being developed within the EU framework.

He uses similar approaches of experimental modeling, cell mediated immunity and imaging in studies on the causative agent of melioidosis (B. pseudomallei), an important cause of septic death in rural Thailand and Northern Australia.  This work is done primarily with a long standing collaboration with colleagues at Khon Kaen University in the endemic region of Thailand who study human immune responses to this organism and at both Mahidol and Chulalongkorn Universities on melioidosis and tuberculosis.  Much of his work investigating the genetic basis of virulence of B. pseudomallei is in collaboration with Prof. Rick Titball (University of Exeter) and Prof. Brendan Wren (LSHTM).  He is  an Honorary Lecturer at  Mahidol University in Bangkok and Visiting Scholar at Khon Kaen University, Thailand.  In addition he has had long standing collaborations with colleagues in DSTL and at NIMR Mill Hill/Crick, the latter on tuberculosis and now more recently melioidosis research.