University of Lincoln (UoL)

The University of Lincoln is a young university founded in 1991, the first to be established in the rural country of Lincolnshire in the United Kingdom. The university has grown rapidly in the U.K rankings, and will open the doors of a new medical school Sept 2019. Within the School of Life Sciences, research strengths include infectious disease diagnostics and global health, diabetes, veterinary infectious disease and animal behaviour.

lincoln.ac.uk

Researchers

MATTHEW BATESPrincipal Investigator

Dr Matthew Bates is Senior Lecturer in Microbiology within the School of Life Sciences at the University of Lincoln. He previously spent 7 years working Zambia, leading the research and training partnership between University College London and the University of Zambia School of Medicine (www.unza-uclms.org) where he also established with Zambian colleagues, his own research organization, to promote research into herpesvirus infections (www.herpez.org). Matthew’s research interests are centred on the need for improved diagnostics and diagnostic series in high disease burden settings. He has over 80 peer reviewed publications, including clinical trials, translational studies and observational and case control studies to determine disease burden and prevalence.

FRANLYN NKONGHOPostdoctoral Research Fellow – Clinical and Translational Research

Franklyn Nkongho is the University of Lincoln’s dedicated postdoctoral researcher working on the EMPIRICAL project. With a strong network of global research contacts, Franklyn Nkongho is passionate about using scientific research to improve health conditions in his home continent of Africa.

Previously a Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast and Head of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory at the Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory in Cameroon. Franklyn Nkongho has also worked as part of a multi-disciplinary team to deliver clinical trials and biomedical research in Cameroon, to develop new tuberculosis diagnostics tool and contributed in building the capacity of HIV viral load testing in Cameroon.

His role on the EMPIRICAL project is to lead the design of SOPs, and development and implementation of training materials and monitoring tools for fieldwork and laboratory analysis across the seven trial sites. He is also coordinating a series of sub-studies into areas such as pharmacokinetic modelling, in order to optimise project outcomes.