Inaugural Lecture: Professor Kirsty Le Doare – protecting mothers and babies around the world

Published: 28 January 2022

Professor Kirsty Le Doare will be giving her inaugural lecture at St George’s, University of London on Monday 31 January. Inaugural lectures offer newly arrived or promoted professors the opportunity to introduce themselves, update colleagues on current and future plans, and share their work with wider audiences. 

Professor Le Doare is a Professor of Vaccinology and Immunology at St George’s and splits her time between the UK and Uganda, leading on vaccine studies in pregnant women in the UK, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

We caught up with Professor Le Doare to get her reflections before her inaugural lecture and to understand a bit more about her background in academia and beyond.

An alternative route to research

Unlike many researchers, Professor Le Doare’s route into academia followed an unusual path. After studying for a degree in European Economic Studies, she worked for ten years in a variety of jobs before making the switch to joining the graduate-entry medicine course at St George’s.

With a prior focus on international development, having worked at Oxfam, Professor Le Doare was always keen to take on a role working across borders.

“I always thought after medicine I would be working for a charity like Médecins Sans Frontières in the field,” she says. “But while I was an undergraduate I started doing research alongside my degree and realised I quite enjoy doing that.”

From there, Professor Le Doare took steps towards improving health internationally through research. Working in South Africa and then the Gambia, with a fellowship from the Wellcome Trust, she started to specialise in vaccine research, and in particular protection against Group B Streptococcus (GBS) infection.

Protecting mothers and babies through vaccination

GBS infection is the major cause of death and illness in babies under the age of three months and is usually passed from mother to baby at birth. Professor Le Doare’s work explores whether vaccinating pregnant women could prevent the disease in both mother and child, as the mother would pass antibodies via the placenta to her infant.

So far, the research team has helped facilitate the pathway for vaccines to be licensed for GBS. Professor Le Doare’s research has informed international guidelines for vaccine licensure. The consortium she leads has shown that measuring the levels of antibodies after receiving a vaccine can be used to assess levels of protection from disease, setting new standards for approving vaccines without the need for prohibitively large clinical trials.

“I would like to see a GBS vaccine licensed in the next five years,” says Professor Le Doare. “I think there’s an international will to make that happen, so I’m hopeful by 2027, we’ll have a vaccine.”

Splitting time between two continents

Working in two locations, thousands of miles apart can present multiple challenges, but for Professor Le Doare, the opportunities it presents outweigh any difficulties.

“It was easier before Covid-19,” she says, “but I’m very lucky that my partner has moved with me. We have a base in Uganda and a base in the UK.

“It’s all about having an extended work day. Either in the morning in the UK or in the evening in Uganda. You get used to it. Juggling everything can be tricky, but if you make sure you’ve got people on the ground you trust to do the work when you’re not there, then everything will be okay.”

As well as the work, being based in Uganda for a substantial part of the year gives Professor Le Doare time to explore her surroundings. “I like travelling a lot,” she says. “It’s quite nice when you’re working in global health, as you can tag nice trips onto the end of meetings.

“At Christmas we went to coastal Kenya, which was lovely, followed by a small safari. And in the summer, we went to the Serengeti in Tanzania to see the great migration. Having a car here means you can just jump in and drive to all these places you normally only see on David Attenborough programmes.”

Being part of a team

Professor Le Doare draws a lot of motivation from working with a talented, multinational team, including 15 people at St George’s, predominantly based in the lab, and a field team of around 150 people in Uganda.

“I’ve got a great team in Uganda and in the UK,” she says. “Getting their careers kickstarted in the way mine was, felt like a massive achievement. That’s what gets me through the day, feeling positive about the work we do.”

When asked about what it means to be made a professor, she adds, “It’s a lovely recognition of the work I’m doing, but it’s not just me, it’s my team. So much of the work is done by them and I couldn’t have achieved what I have without them.”

Professor Kirsty Le Doare inaugural lecture will be on Monday 31 January 2022. Further details on the event, including how to register to attend, can be found here.