Professor Mary Slack
Professor Mary Slack is a Radcliffe Common Room Member at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. Mary is an independent Consultant Medical Microbiologist and was a Founding Fellow of Green College.
Mary Slack is currently a Professor in the School of Medicine and Dentistry at Griffith University, Gold Coast campus, Queensland, Australia. She was the University Lecturer (Honorary Consultant) in Bacteriology, teaching and examining clinical microbiology to Oxford University clinical medical students from 1975 to 2003, and a Consultant Medical Microbiologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital and Public Health England.
She did her clinical training at Cambridge University, Kings College Hospital, London and Oxford. She was formerly Head of the Haemophilus and Pneumococcal Reference Laboratories at Public Health England, Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Haemophilus influenzae and Head of the Global Reference Laboratory for Haemophilus influenzae in the WHO Global Vaccine-Preventable Invasive Bacterial Disease (VP-IBD) Surveillance Network. She has worked extensively in developing countries- assisting WHO, PATH, the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), the Hib Initiative and the PneumoADIP by providing technical support, advice and training for sentinel site surveillance of paediatric bacterial meningitis, pneumonia and sepsis.
Previous appointments include Research Scientist at the Institute of Hygiene and Microbiology, University of Wurzburg, Germany. Currently she is providing microbiological support to a study of pneumococcal infections in young children in Hainan Province, People’s Republic of China (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).
Her research interests include Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae infections, the impact of Hib and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines and the role of vaccines in combatting antimicrobial resistance and reducing community acquired pneumonia. She has published more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals and several chapters in major textbooks.
