In June 2015, a plenary meeting was held in Verona to decide on the EAPCRI’s future. All participants agreed to expand the EAPCRI to create working parties dedicated to devising standards for PCR of Candida, Pneumocystis, mucorales and tissue diagnosis while continuing the pursuit of a standard for bronchioalveolar lavage and other specimens to detect Aspergillus. It was further decided to restructure the group to reflect this change. The Laboratory Working Party was divided into 5 groups and the clinical counterpart Clinical & Translational Working Party was created. The name of the Working Group was also changed to the Fungal PCR Initiative (FPCRI) and a new logo was designed. The EAPCRI will retain its function to raise funds to finance the FPCRI. Consequently, the Chair, Secretary and Treasurer of the EACPRI will continue as part of the Steering Committee but have been joined by the chairs of the Laboratory and Clinical & Translational Working Parties. One of the EACPRI officers will continue to chair the FPCRI Working group to preserve the existing link and foster optimal communications. The task of the Steering Committee remains the same, namely,
JOINT STEERING COMMITTEE
The FPCRI Steering Committee consists of the directors of the EAPCRI (Chair: J Peter Donnelly, Secretary: Jurgen Loeffler and Treasurer: Rosemary Barnes), the chair of the FPCRI (Jurgen Loeffler ) and the chairs of Laboratory Working Party (Lewis White) and the Clinical & Translation Working Party (Mario Cruciani). The Steering Committee meets every quarter holding at least two face-to-face meetings and relying on WEB meetings and conference calls for the remainder.
Prof. Loeffler has been working for over 20 years in the field of molecular diagnostics of invasive mycoses, in particular invasive aspergillosis. He is the head of the Steering Committee of the Fungal PCR Initiative (FPCRI). Other research areas include the analysis of the innate and adaptive immune response against human pathogenic fungi as well as studies on the genetic susceptibility to mold fungi.
Dr. Donnelly is Coordinator of Studies in Supportive Care of the Department of Haematology and is a member of the Nijmegen Institute for Infection Inflammation and Immunity.
He is Chair of the EORTC Infectious Disease Group and member of the EBMT Infectious Diseases Working Party and EUCAST subcommittee on Antifungal Susceptibility Tests. His current research interests are the epidemiology, diagnosis and management of invasive fungal diseases, mucosal barrier injury and infection and infectious complications of the neutropenic patient.
Rosemary Barnes is a founding member of the European Aspergillus PCR Initiative Working Rosemary Barnes is emeritus Professor of Medical Microbiology in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases within the Division of Infection and Immunity at the School of Medicine at Cardiff University, UK, where she worked as an honorary consultant for Public Health Wales at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff.
Her interests include infections in immunocompromised patients and the treatment and rapid diagnosis of invasive fungal infection. She is past President of the British Society of Medical Mycology and past Chair of the UK Clinical Mycology Network.
Dr. White is the lead clinical scientist for the regional mycology laboratory, the Wales Centre for Mycobacteria and deputy head of molecular diagnostics for NPHS microbiology Cardiff.For the last 10 years his research has focused on the molecular diagnosis of invasive fungal infections, with an emphasis on Aspergillus and Candida and incorporating these tests in to a clinical setting.Additional, research has focused on antifungal susceptibility, molecular detection and identification of mycobacteria and the molecular genotyping of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Dr. Cruciani is an infectious diseases specialist with more than 20 years of experience in infectious diseases and clinical microbiology. At present he is Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the Center of Preventive Medicine & HIV Outpatient Clinic in Verona, and he also runs an infectious diseases service at the San Bonifacio Hospital in Verona. Ongoing teaching roles: Adjunct Professor, University of Padua. Areas of Clinical and Research interests: infections in neutropenic patients and in HIV infected patients, epidemiology of nosocomial infections, meta-analysis of clinical trials, meta-analysis of diagnostic tests.
Chair
J Peter Donnelly, BSc PhD FRCPath
EAPCRI
c/o De Hoefkamp 1096
6545 MD Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-64-116-9297
p.donnelly(at)usa.net
Webmaster
Nele Schliep
schliep_n@ukw.de