Global T Cell Expert Consortium (GTEC) – COVID-19

Danny Altmann, Chairperson of the Global T cell Expert Consortium (GTEC) and Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London discusses the different methods of diagnosing COVID-19, why antibody testing alone is not enough to diagnose the infection, and T cells and their role in diagnosing COVID.  He talks about the GTEC and what they hope to accomplish. 

Danny Altmann is Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, where he heads a lab at the Hammersmith Hospital Campus. Professor Altmann has acted in a range of roles during the pandemic in providing advice to policy-makers, including the House of Commons and House of Lords Science Committees. He has served for the past 20 years as editor across journals including Oxford Open Immunology, Immunology and Vaccine. He is a trustee of the Medical Research Foundation and a board member for the African Research Excellence Fund. He previously headed up strategy on infection, immunity and population health at the Wellcome Trust.Professor Altmann’s research interests focus on the immunology of infectious diseases including severe bacterial infections, SARS-CoV-2, Zika virus and Chikungunya virus. His lab also uses tools such as the analysis of HLA polymorphism and the molecular immunology of T cell and NK cell subsets and antigen responses to characterise innate and adaptive immunity.