Dr Kevin Markey

Kevin Markey has an interest in:

• bacterial virulence
• pathogenesis and toxins
• control testing of vaccines and biological standardisation

For his PhD he studied the virulence mechanisms of the Burkholderia cepacia complex of lung pathogens, receiving his doctorate from the Institute of Technology, Tallaght, Dublin, Ireland in 2003. He continued investigating this family of bacteria as a post-doctoral scientist at the University of Liverpool.

Kevin joined NIBSC in 2006, initially working on tuberculosis vaccines before joining the pertussis group in 2011, where he is responsible for the batch release of acellular pertussis combination vaccines and WHO pre-qualification testing of whole cell pertussis vaccines. He is also responsible for the anthrax study area.

He also has responsibility for pertussis standards, including developing new standards. His current research interests include:

• Bordetella pertussis genomics and proteomics
• assay development
• standardisation of pertussis serology.

Kevin also has an interest in developing assays to replace current regulatory tests.

He has published scientific papers, assisted in the establishment of WHO International Standards, and contributed to WHO workshops on quality control testing of vaccines. He is always interested in developing new collaborations.