POPCORN Conference 2025

Dr. Saul Faust FRCPCH PhD OBE, is Professor and Hon consultant of Paediatric Immunology & Infectious Diseases at the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. Dr. Faust is currently Director of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Southampton Clinical Research Facility, national clinical lead for infection vaccines for the NIHR Vaccine Innovation Pathway, NIHR Research Delivery Network co-national clinical lead for children, Chair of the UK University Hospital Association R&D Directors Group, co-Director of the UK National Immunisation Schedule Evaluation Consortium (NISEC) and a NIHR Senior Investigator.

Dr. Faust’s academic background is in translational research related to children’s infectious diseases and immunology including bench to bedside research and clinical trials of anti-infective agents and vaccines in children and adults. He was Chief Investigator for the UK national COV-BOOST 3rd and 4th dose COVID-19 vaccine trial that informed UK and global policy. He designed the innovative HARMONIE trial that demonstrated the impact of nirsevimab to prevent hospitalisation of healthy infants due to RSV lower respiratory tract infection in collaboration with colleagues and Sanofi.

From March 2020 Dr. Faust convened and led joint working between UK Clinical Research Facility Directors, National Clinical Research Network Leaders, Hospital R&D Directors, NHS England and the UK Dept of Health and Social Care that established best practice in pivoting the research delivery system to safely stop normal business and ensure NHS delivery of research into diagnostics, therapies and vaccines for COVID-19 while maintaining critical non-COVID trials that provided essential patient care. During the pandemic he served as one of two paediatric members of the NIHR Urgent Public Health Committee and was Deputy Chair of the national Research Restart Implementation Committee from 2021.

Outside of research, Dr. Faust is NHS England national clinical lead for paediatric allergy, immunology and infectious diseases, and he chaired the UK NICE Guideline Committees for sepsis in children and adults (2016) and for Lyme Disease (2018).

Dr. Forest holds a bachelor's and master's degree in political science from Laval University and a doctorate in the history and sociopolitics of science from the University of Montreal. He has been a professor at several Canadian and American universities. He has taught at Laval University, the University of Montreal, and was Director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at Johns Hopkins University and Professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Since 2016, he has been a full professor of public health in the department of community health at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, and until 2021 he held the James S. and Barbara A. Palmer Chair in Public Policy at the same university.

In addition to his wealth of experience in the research community, Dr. Forest has a good knowledge of federal and provincial public health. He was a member of the task force responsible for setting up the Public Health Agency of Canada from 2003 to 2004, after a similar experience in Quebec at the time of the creation of the INSPQ between 1997 and 1999. He also served as President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. An outstanding communicator, Dr. Forest has advised governments, health organizations and research institutions in Canada, the United States and Europe.