2. Our people

Professor Wang Linfa
Executive Director

Professor Wang Linfa began his role as PREPARE’s inaugural Executive Director (ED) in September 2021 and is helming the Programme together with the PREPARE Executive Committee (PREPARE EXCO) comprising PREPARE’s Deputy ED, and Co-operative and Core leads. He is concurrently a Professor in the Programme in Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, and was previously Director of the EID Programme. He is one of the world’s leading experts in zoonotic diseases, bat immunology and pathogen discovery. Prof Wang is also a member of multiple World Health Organization committees on COVID-19.

Professor David Lye
Deputy Executive Director

Professor David Lye serves as PREPARE’s inaugural Deputy Executive Director, officially taking office in November 2021. He is concurrently Director of the Infectious Disease Research and Training Office at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and jointly appointed as Professor at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. He is also a member of the Expert Committee on COVID-19 Vaccination, Ministry of Health (MOH), Singapore. His main research interests are in COVID-19, dengue, antimicrobial resistance and clinical trials.

Prof Baron Peter Piot
Chair, PREPARE International Advisory Panel (IAP)
Handa Professor of Global Health & Former Director
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
European Union (EU) Chief Scientific Advisor, Epidemics
Special Advisor on COVID-19 to the President of the European Commission
Visiting Professor
Rega Institute / KU Leuven / National University of Singapore (NUS)

Prof Peter Piot is the Handa Professor of Global Health and former Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is the EU Chief Scientific Advisor, Epidemics; Special Advisor on COVID-19 to the President of the European Commission, and visiting professor at the Rega Institute, KU Leuven, and the National University of Singapore (NUS). He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations. He co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976, and led pioneering research on HIV, women’s health and infectious diseases. He is Vice-Chair of GHIT Fund, Tokyo, was a founding Board Member of CEPI, and the Chair of the King Baudouin Foundation.

Dr Meera Chand
Member, PREPARE International Advisory Panel (IAP)
Director, Clinical and Emerging Infections, UK Health Security Agency

Dr Meera Chand is a trained microbiologist and the Director of Clinical and Emerging Infections at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). Her team is overseeing and coordinating UK responses to emerging infectious diseases events such as COVID-19, acute childhood hepatitis and the recent Monkeypox outbreaks.

Prof Rino Rappuoli
Member, PREPARE International Advisory Panel (IAP)
Scientific Director, Biotecnopolo di Siena Foundation, Italy
Head of MAD Lab Toscana Life Sciences, Italy

Prof Rino Rappuoli is the Scientific Director of the Biotecnopolo di Siena Foundation and head of MAD Lab Toscana Life Sciences, Italy. He was previously the Head R&D and Chief Scientist at GSK Vaccines, Head of Vaccine R&D at Novartis, CSO at Chiron Corporation, and Head R&D at Sclavo. He has introduced novel scientific concepts: genetic detoxification; cellular microbiology; reverse vaccinology; pangenome. His work on licensed vaccines include: acellular pertussis containing a non-toxic mutant of pertussis toxin; first conjugate vaccine against meningococcus C; MF59-adjuvanted seasonal and pandemic influenza MF59 was the first vaccine adjuvant after aluminium salts; meningococcus B; CRM 197 used as carrier in many conjugate vaccines.

Prof Johan Neyts
Member, PREPARE International Advisory Panel (IAP)
Virology, Antiviral Drug & Vaccine Research, Rega Institute for Medical Research,
Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Transplantation, Faculty of Medicine,
University of Leuven, Belgium

Prof Johan Neyts is a full professor of Virology at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium. His lab has a long-standing expertise in the development of antivirals strategies and drugs against emerging and neglected viral infections such as dengue and other flaviviruses, Chikungunya and other alphaviruses, enteroviruses, noroviruses, HEV and rabies and is intensively involved in the search for antiviral strategies against SARS-CoV2. He is the co-founder of KU Leuven spin-offs AstriVax and Okapi Sciences. Prof Neyts is responsible for the Belgian VirusBank platform, a 20 million euros investment by the Belgian Federal Government.