Respiratory Research Team, Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
Respiratory Infection Group/Experimental Human Pneumococcal Challenge, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Dr Victoria Connor is a Clinical Research Fellow working between LSTM and Royal Liverpool University Hospital trust. She is also undertaking a part-time MD degree at LSTM researching the drivers of nasopharyngeal pneumococcal colonisation. Dr Connor graduated from University of Liverpool Medical School in 2012 with a MbCHB medical degree. Following this she worked in local Merseyside hospitals to complete her foundation training and core medical training within Mersey Denary.
Victoria joined the Respiratory Infection Group at LSTM in August 2016 ad a Clinical Research Fellow and enrolled as part-time MD student in December 2016. She is working with the Ferreira Group on the only Experimental Human Pneumococcal Carriage (EHPC) model in the world. Her MD projects have focused on using this novel EHPC model to investigate pneumococcal transmission dynamics and developing the model to include the use of two new serotypes for experimental challenge.
Dr Connor works within the Ferreira Group on the only Experimental Human Pneumococcal Carriage (EHPC) model in the world. This model studies healthy volunteers and patients with increased risk of pneumococcal disease. Their main aim is to add to understanding of why some people are protected against pneumococcal carriage and others are not. The EHPC model was developed over the last 8 years at LSTM, it involved inoculating humans safely with live pneumococcal bacteria in order to establish nasopharyngeal carriage.
The groups work focuses on mucosal and systemic responses to pneumococcal carriage and the development of novel pneumococcal vaccines. The main lines of research currently are:
- Healthy responses and host susceptibility to pneumococcus
- The effect of influenza on pneumococcal carriage
- Vaccine discovery
In this team Victoria works as a clinician, supervisors and team manager. She has lead on participant safety throughout a number of studies and has been lead investigator for two studies and principle investigator for one study:
- Experimental Human Pneumococcal Carriage model: Research working towards a nasal vaccine for pneumonia: The effect of new strains (types) of bacteria in healthy participants (ISRCTN68323432)
- Experimental human Pneumococcal carriage: Investigating the transmission of pneumococcus bacteria from hand to the nose of healthy adults (ISRCTN12909224)
- Hand to nose transmission of Streptococcus pneumoniae in healthy participants: randomised control trial assessing the effect of hand washing on transmission.