Sharon Peacock CBE appointed Director of the Bloomsbury Research Institute

Professor Sharon Peacock has been appointed as the first Director of the Bloomsbury Research Institute, a partnership between the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and UCL dedicated to addressing the global challenge of infectious disease. She will lead the development of a circa £50 million research facility that will bring together more than 200 leading scientists to find new treatments, vaccines and diagnostics for prevention and control of infectious diseases. Research at the Institute will focus on the major global killers - tuberculosis, HIV and malaria - as well as neglected tropical diseases and emerging pathogens. It will also contribute to the international effort to address antimicrobial resistance and develop new antimicrobials, a key priority for the World Health Organization and the UK Government. Professor Peacock, who was this year awarded CBE for services to medical microbiology, is currently Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the University of Cambridge. She has already started work with the Bloomsbury Research Institute and will take up her post full-time from September. Professor Peacock said: "It will be a privilege to lead this Institute, which has grown out of a compelling vision to bring together the complementary knowledge and skills in infectious disease research in two world-leading academic institutions.