Prof Russ Stothard

Prof J. Russell Stothard is based at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and has conducted multidisciplinary research on schistosomiasis in Africa, with particularly seminal studies in Uganda, Malawi and Nigeria. He was director of the DFID funded implementation research consortium COUNTDOWN (2014-2019) which helped change international health policies for more equitable access to PZQ across all age groups, and worked closely with the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health. This year he was awarded the CA Wright Memorial Medal from the British Society for Parasitology with specific reference to pioneering studies on genital schistosomiasis in both genders. He is an acknowledged world leading expert, a distinguished educator and international speaker, who provides regular technical advice to WHO. In 2009, as Research Leader in the Biomedical Parasitology Division of the Natural History Museum (WHO Collaborating Centre), he led the EU-FP6 project entitled CONTRAST and was co-author on the first report of S. haematobium-bovis hybrids. Since then, he has continued to advance the molecular epidemiology and control of neglected helminth diseases, having had extensive experience in leading field teams implementing portable ultrasonography and point-of-contact (POC) diagnostics, gained as field programme coordinator (2002-2004) for the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, London.