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Staff Profile

Professor Marieke Emonts-le Clercq

Hon Prof Paediatric Infectious Diseases

  • Email: [email protected]
  • Telephone: +44 191 2825984 DECT 26536
  • Personal Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariekeemonts/
  • Address: Level 4
    Clinical Resource Building
    Great North Children's Hospital
    Department of Paediatric Immunology & Infectious Diseases
    Queen Victoria Road
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 4LP
Background

As consultant Paediatric Infectious Diseases & Immunology and Honorary Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases I have a sound background in clinic and research from the start. I studied Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Leiden, the Netherlands, after which I combined my Paediatric training with a PhD post in the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Laboratory at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

I completed my PhD on immunogenetics of infectious and inflammatory diseases in 2008. Initially focussing on meningococcal disease I broadened my horizon to include other bacterial infections. My PhD formed the start of wonderful collaborations resulting in participation in two large European funded consortia.

The overarching theme in activities is the promotion of diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities for childhood infections, particularly in an era of increasing antimicrobial resistance. This requires focus of the research on:

1.     Early recognition of the type of infection: bacterial vs viral, and type of bacterial infection. This can minimise the unnecessary use of antimicrobials in patients presenting with fever at an A&E, and thus prevent antimicrobial resistance.

2.     Identification of alternative therapeutic targets, particularly in recurrent infective conditions to circumvent antimicrobial resistance. Innate immune factors could be these targets and elucidating their role in infection will aid in identifying which ones could also be targeted for prevention and/or treatment.

3.     Participation in randomised controlled trials facilitating registration of safe and effective antimicrobial/antiviral drugs for paediatric use. 

In addition, with my team I have started to explore heallth inequality in infectious diseases. Infections like brain abscesses are more prevalent in the deprived Northeast, and also ED attendance for febrile illness is high for children from low IMD score (more deprived) areas in the region.

Please click on the research tab above for further details.

This theme is also reflected in my work as consultant Paediatric Infectious Diseases & Immunology at the Great North Children's Hospital (GNCH) where I look after children with (severe) bacterial, fungal and viral infections. These include meningitis, osteomyelitis (in collaboration with the paediatric orthopaedic team) and congenital CMV infections. With our team, we provide a consultation service as part of the antimicrobial stewardship program. In addition, I am the Paediatric lead for the High Consequence Infectious Diseases Unit in the RVI

I am Curriculum director for the Post Graduate Clinical Research Programmes (Attendance and eLearning) for the Graduate School.

I am Deputy Clinical Director and Patient Safety & Governance Lead for the Children's Directorate, GNCH



Area of expertise

ORCID: Click here.
ResearchGate: Click here.

Research

My work spans basic science, observational research and randomised controlled trials (RCTs). The work focuses on infectious diseases in children with an interest in early diagnosis and innate immunity.

Additionally I conduct projects aimed at evaluation of infection management with direct impact on clinical practice.

Most of the work I am involved in is (inter)national and collaborative.

 

EUCLIDS (European childhood life threatening infectious diseases study) is a large FP7 funded project looking at genetics of severity and susceptibility of infection using bacterial meningitis and sepsis as a model. Using RNA expression analysis disease specific profiles are being assessed to identify relevant pathways. Our collaborators explore findings in our patient population in in vitro and animal models.

PERFORM (Personalised medicine for febrile illness) is an €18 million collaborative project funded under the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation.

This five-year project will look at ways to reduce antibiotic misuse, through the development of improved tests used to distinguish bacterial from viral infections. Currently, doctors have very limited capacity to reliably differentiate life-threatening bacterial infections from trivial viral illnesses in children. As a result, thousands of children worldwide undergo investigations such as lumbar punctures, x-rays and blood cultures, and are treated with broad spectrum antibiotics while waiting to rule out bacterial infection. Better tests to identify those children with life threatening infection amongst the infinitely more numerous children with viral infections are urgently needed if antibiotic use is to be reduced. PERFORM will apply sophisticated genomic and proteomic methods to study thousands of febrile children with the aim of identifying and developing a better test for bacterial infection than what is currently available.

Part of this study MOFICHE looks at resource use in 38,000 children visiting EDs in European hospitals. For children who visited the three participating hospitals in the UK we also looked at the association with deprivation.

DIAMONDS (Diagnosis and Management of Febrile Illness using RNA Personalised Molecular Signature Diagnosis) is an €22 million collaborative project funded under the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 IA programme.

This project aims to rapid test to develop and pilot a test to diagnose severe illnesses such as sepsis and meningitis, using personalised gene signatures. The international consortium will build a gene signature library where signatures of all common infectious and inflammatory diseases will be stored and made publicly available. Comparison of gene expression patterns in each patient's blood sample, allows that the diagnosis in each individual can be made rapidly.  

Newcastle leads on the cohort including immunocompromised patients in whom infection risk is increased and diagnosing cause of infection can be very challenging in these two projects. So far over 50000 patients have been recruited, about 4000 of which in Newcastle. In addition we work with the Young Persons Advisory Group North England and obtain their views regarding consent, biobanking, and use of data.


I welcome contact from any students or potential collaborators who may be interested in working with us.

 

Collaborators

The EUCLIDS project involves collaboration with investigator from multiple sites in the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, and Gambia.


PERFORM is conducted in UK sites (Liverpool, London, Oxford, Newcastle), the Netherlands (Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Nijmegen), Spain (Santiago de Compostella), Austria (Graz), Germany (Munich), Latvia (Riga), Greece (Athens), Gambia, Australia (Melbourne), Switzerland (Bern), and Singapore.


DIAMONDS: all PERFORM sites, and in addition Italy (Rome, Milan), The Netherlands (Utrecht), France (Colombe), Spain (Madrid), Taiwan (Tainan)

Collaborators involved in Newcastle are:

Clinical: Dr Emma Lim and dr Rachel Agbeko

Business School Centre for Knowledge Innovation Technology and Enterprise (KITE): Dr Lucille Valentine

Translational Medicine and Clinical Research: Professor John Isaacs, Dr Neil Keegan

We collaborate with YPAG, the Young Person's Advisory Group North East whose input is vital to learn about their view on consent procedures and data sharing.

 

COVID-19 research

Next to DIAMONDS we recruit paediatric patients into RECOVERY an RCT, and in BATS, ISARIC, and Immunocovid, which are observational studies. In addition we recruit to Gypsophila, a phase Ib trial evaluating PK PD for tocilizumab.


HARMONIE

RSV vaccination trial ongoing follow up, recruitment completed


We participated in recruitment of patients for other studies such as CHIMES (Oxford and Liverpool lead), Dinosaur (Southampton lead), and the commercial (DAP-PEDOST) funded trial, and NIH funded RCT (DMID-11-0069) comparing valganciclovir vs placebo in toddlers with hearing loss due to congenital CMV infection. We were international top recruiters for this trial.

The European study Calypso evaluates antifungal use in paediatric patients.

 

INIMUTI was a pilot project looking at innate immunity in UTI in collaboration with DrsJudith Hall and Philip Aldridge (Institute for Cell & Molecular Biosciences).

 

Current grants:

H2020: PERFORM

H2020: DIAMONDS



Teaching

I am involved in the clinical teaching of medical students in paediatrics at GNCH.

I supervise undergraduate medical student SSC projects, Erasmus Master students in Paediatric Infectious Diseases, MRes students and AFPs. Most our students present their work at (inter)national conferences. All projects inform improvement of day to day care for patients.

I am Curriculum director for the Post Graduate Clinical Research Programmes (Attendance and eLearning) for the Graduate School.

We were awarded funding by NIHR to develop a new PG Cert in Clinical Research Delivery, and enrolled the first learners in 2022

In addition I am a tutor and examiner for the postgraduate Diploma in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at Oxford University

 I welcome anyone contacting me who may be interested in working in the field of Paediatric Infectious Diseases.

Publications