Dr Katharina Kranzer
FRCPath MRCP MBBS MSc MSc PhD
Professor
Infectious Disease Epidemiology
LSHTM
Keppel Street
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
I am a Professor at LSHTM, an Honorary Consultant in Medical Microbiology at the University College London Hospital and hold an appointment at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. I am based in Harare, Zimbabwe where I am deputy director of the Zim-LSHTM Research Partnership, a partnership between the LSHTM and the Biomedical Research and Training Institute (BRTI) in Harare, Zimbabwe.
My Phd (2008-2011), which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, focused on the role of active TB case finding and antiretroviral therapy for TB control in high HIV prevalence settings. From 2015-2018 I directed the National and WHO Supranational TB Reference Laboratory in Germany, Research Centre Borstel.
Together with Dr Norbert Heinrich I lead an EDCTP-funded TB household contact study (ERASE-TB) with the aim to evaluate new diagnostic tests and algorithms to diagnose TB before transmission occurs, earlier than current diagnostic approaches and to identify those most at risk for developing TB to allow targeted preventive treatment. I am chief scientist for an EDCTP-funded cluster randomised trial (TB-CAPT) led by the Foundation of Innovative Diagnostics (FIND) investigating the effect of near patient TB diagnostics (Omni Xpert/Ultra) on time to TB treatment initiation.
I am involved in a number of studies investigating antimicrobial resistance in Africa. In collaboration with Dr Tom Darton at the University of Sheffield and Dr Justin Dixon we are investigating the effect of the 2019 conjugated typhoid vaccine campaign on antimicrobial prescribing in Harare, Zimbabwe.
In 2020 I contributed as a member of the guideline development group to the WHO guidelines on systematic TB screening and nucleic acid amplification tests for detection of TB and drug resistant TB.
Affiliations
Centres
Teaching
I am module organiser and lecturer on the HIV module in London. Furthermore I am a member of the faculty of the NIH Fogarthy Training for Research Excellence and Mentorship in Tuberculosis Program (TRENT). I regulalry supervise MSc projects and (co)supervise several PhD students. Most of them are based and work in Zimbabwe.
I am particularly committed to capacity building. In my previous role as the director of the WHO Supranational Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory we partnered with national and regional laboratories in Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Sierra Leone, Pakistan and Ghana. Together with members of my team I regularly conducted supervisory visits in country and delivered teaching on new (molecular) diagnostics, quality managements and laboratory information systems.
Research
- Tuberculosis: Diagnostics including drug susceptibility testing, epidemiology, prevention & control, livelihood
- Sexual transmitted diseases: Diagnostics (point of care) and linkage to care
- Antimicrobial resistance: Epidemiology, surveillance, antimicrobial stewardship, infection prevention and control
- COVID-19: Epidemiology, direct and indirect effects on health care workers and access to health care