Biography
Florian Marks, Ph.D., is the Deputy Director General of IVI’s Epidemiology, Public Health and Impact (EPIC) unit. This unit encompasses five departments, namely Real-World Evidence, Biostatistics and Data Management, Immunoepidemiology, Antimicrobial Resistance, and Policy and Economic Research. The EPIC unit plays a pivotal role in managing a diverse array of activities including comprehensive epidemiological investigations, undertaking cost-of-illness/cost-effectiveness studies, facilitating training and capacity improvement initiatives, exploring the impact of vaccines on antimicrobial resistance, as well as conducting post-licensure studies to assess vaccine effectiveness and impact.
Additionally, Dr. Marks holds the position of Principal Research Associate at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Antananarivo/Madagascar Institute for Vaccine Research, and a Researcher at the Heidelberg Institute for Global Health.
With a distinguished career spanning over 20 years, Dr. Marks has excelled in conducting epidemiological and clinical studies. His vast experience includes the successful execution of large-scale, multi-center research initiatives, notably the Typhoid Fever Surveillance in Africa and the Severe Typhoid in Africa TSAP/SETA programs. These endeavors have yielded valuable data on the incidence and severity of typhoid fever infections in various African countries and helped establish a network of well-operating clinical sites.
Dr. Marks joined IVI in 2006. Prior to his tenure at IVI, he held a researcher position at the Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany. It was during this time that Dr. Marks completed his doctoral degree in malaria epidemiology. While his initial training lies in pharmacy, he has further expanded his academic pursuits, in addition to his doctoral degree, by earning a Master of Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Research
Vaccines are one of the most powerful tools to prevent infectious diseases. New vaccines against a battery of viral, parasitic and bacterial pathogens are currently planned or already in the development pipeline. Epidemiological and clinical studies are necessary to determine the existing disease burden of target diseases, the level of vaccine protection as well as the identification of appropriate target populations and the need for improvements to existing vaccination schemes and to quantify the add-on benefits such as herd protection and vaccine effects pertinent to the reduction of antimicrobial resistance.
Jointly with our partner group at the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, Republic of Korea, and other collaborating institutions, we operate a network of field sites in 14 African and 12 Asian countries capable of conducting multi-center epidemiological field studies that provide well-characterized samples for basic research as well as a platform for the conduct of clinical trials.
Our research group focuses on the late-stage support of generating clinical data for a novel typhoid conjugate vaccine through a cluster-randomized Phase III trial in Ghana and an effectiveness trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, thereby generating data urgently required by the World Health Organization and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to support vaccine introduction scenarios.
Our group is also supporting the clinical development of a novel schistosomiasis vaccine, Sm-p80, developed by colleagues from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, that is currently entering Phase I studies.
Apart from the conduct of epidemiological/clinical studies, this well-established field network will be leveraged as a platform for scientists in the Department and beyond to add-on study activities and obtain samples in high quality to execute basic sciences research.