Professor Saul Faust

Saul Faust FRCPCH PhD FFPM(Hon) OBE, is Professor and Hon Consultant of Paediatric Immunology & Infectious Diseases at the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. Saul is currently Director of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Southampton Clinical Research Facility, Co-Director of the new NIHR Wessex Commercial Research Delivery Centre, national clinical lead for infection vaccines for the NIHR Vaccine Innovation Pathway, NIHR Research Delivery Network co-national clinical lead for children, Chair of the UK University Hospital Association R&D Directors Group, co-Director of the UK National Immunisation Schedule Evaluation Consortium (NISEC) and a NIHR Senior Investigator.

Saul Faust’s academic background is in translational research related to children’s infectious diseases and immunology including bench to bedside research and clinical trials of anti-infective agents and vaccines in children and adults. He was Chief Investigator for the UK national COV-BOOST 3rd and 4th dose COVID-19 vaccine trial that informed UK and global policy, and paediatric lead for the RECOVERY trial. He designed the innovative HARMONIE trial that demonstrated the impact of nirsevimab to prevent hospitalisation of healthy infants due to RSV lower respiratory tract infection in collaboration with colleagues and Sanofi. Saul is current working with 2 UK SMEs and UKHSA to deliver their phase 1 vaccine trials.

Outside of research, Prof Faust is NHS England national clinical lead for paediatric allergy, immunology and infectious diseases and a member of the NHS England Clinical Panel. He chaired the UK NICE Guideline Committees for sepsis in children and adults (2016) and for Lyme Disease (2018).

Prof Faust was awarded an OBE in 2022 for research leadership during the pandemic.

Professor Faust commented:

I am very grateful to the Fellowship, Awards Committee and Board of Trustees for giving me this recognition. My most exciting work has been when I have been able to work rapidly with colleagues in pharmaceutical medicine, bringing academics and industry together to design and deliver early and later phase vaccine and antimicrobial trials that have led to changes in UK and global vaccine policy. It will be a pleasure to use this recognition to further my work with colleagues across the National Institute for Health and Care Research to create facilities and networks supporting the highest quality environment for the conduct of commercial and industry collaborative research in the NHS.

Professor Bobby Gaspar

Bobby is a world-renowned scientist and physician and accomplished strategic and organizational leader with more than 25 years of experience in medicine and biotechnology. He is co-founder and chief executive officer of Orchard Therapeutics, a global gene therapy leader recently acquired by Kyowa Kirin with the goal of accelerating the delivery of new gene therapies to patients around the globe. Bobby has been a pioneer in gene therapy and the evolution of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapy —including some of the first studies in patients with severe primary immune deficiencies — bringing it from bench side research into late-stage clinical trials and demonstrating that gene therapy can potentially cure severe genetic diseases. He has led Orchard through the approval of Lib/Lenmeldy in the EU and USA for the treatment of metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD). His unparalleled expertise and deep relationships with key physicians and treatment centers around the world are integral to Orchard’s efforts to identify patients with MLD and other severe genetic conditions through targeted disease education, early diagnosis and comprehensive newborn screening. In 2024, he was named in the TIME 100 inaugural list of most influential people in global health.

Bobby is an honorary professor of pediatrics and immunology at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. He studied medicine and surgery at King’s College in London before completing his Ph.D. at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.

Professor Gaspar commented:

I am deeply grateful to the Fellowship and Awards Committee and the Board of Trustees for this recognition! Having had a long and rewarding career in academia and clinical medicine working in the emerging field of gene therapy, I had the privilege of setting up and leading a biotech company and taking forward highly innovative science and clinical data to approved products that have life changing value for patients across the world. Gene therapy has the potential to offer potentially curative outcomes for a wide range of rare and more common diseases and requires highly skilled experts in many disciplines to make that a reality.

This award was only possible through the work of an extraordinary team and partnership with multiple external stakeholders who deserve enormous credit. The discipline and rigour required to make a medicine is often not recognised and I hope this award brings recognition to many individuals working in pharmaceutical medicine who strive every day to bring hope and change to patients and their families.