Professor Rosanna Peeling

Rosanna Peeling is currently Professor/Chair of Diagnostics Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Director of the International Diagnostic Centre (IDC). Trained as a medical microbiologist, she was Research Coordinator and Head of Diagnostics Research at the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (WHO/TDR) in Geneva and Chief of the National Laboratory for Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Canada before assuming her current position. Her research focuses on defining unmet diagnostic needs and facilitating test development, evaluation and implementation in developing countries. She established the IDC to advocate the value of diagnostics, foster innovation, and accelerate access to quality-assured diagnostics to improve global health and to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR). She is a member of the Prize Advisory Panel for the UK Longitude Prize, the European Commission Horizon 2020 AMR Prize and the Global AMR Innovation Fund.

She contributed to WHO Testing Guidelines for HIV, Hepatitis, Dengue and sexually transmitted infections and served as a member of the WHO/TDR Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee. She is a member of the Global Validation Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV and Syphilis, the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on In Vitro Diagnostics (SAGE IVD), the Social Innovation for Health Initiative and the WHO COVID-19 Advisory panel for developing Target Product Profiles for diagnostics.  She is a member of the Africa CDC Laboratory Working Group for the COVID-19 Pandemic Response and has set up the Africa CDC Biobanking Network for the evaluation of diagnostic tests for diseases of epidemic potential.  She has recently been invited by the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine to serve as a member of the Committee on Public Health Interventions and Countermeasures for Advancing Pandemic and Seasonal Influenza Preparedness and Response.

Concerned about the lack of capacity in critical decision making in diagnostics in developing countries, Professor Peeling collaborated with Fondation Merieux to organise an Advanced Course on Diagnostics, which, over the last 10 years, has trained over 350 policy makers in 80 countries.   

Professor Peeling was the recipient of a YM-YWCA Women of Distinction Award, a 5NR Award for Canadian Leaders of Sustainable Development, and was the first woman scientist to be awarded the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine’s George MacDonald Medal in 2014. Her research was featured in a Discovery Channel documentary on Chlamydia Infection and Infertility, and in Fighting Syphilis, a documentary in the highly acclaimed BBC Kill or Cure series.