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Chief Scientific Officer: Host Directed Therapy

Prof Robert Wallis

Prof Robert Wallis

Prof Wallis is a physician-scientist with training in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, and expertise in the development of biologics, vaccines, and small molecules.

He is the Chief Scientific Officer: Host Directed Therapy and is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Medicine in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He holds adjunct appointments as Professor at Case Western Reserve University and Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, where he previously held full-time positions. He has published approximately 140 manuscripts, review articles, and book chapters, mainly in the areas of tuberculosis biomarkers, immunotherapy, and anti-infective drug development. He has particular expertise in the use of innovative models to evaluate new drugs and vaccines.

Prof Wallis came to Aurum after nearly 10 years in the pharmaceutical industry, most recently at Pfizer, where his leadership in anti-infective R&D included the TB candidate sutezolid. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Infectious Diseases and is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Dr Wallis is presently leading multiple studies of adjunctive host-directed therapies in tuberculosis at Aurum.

Publications

16 publications

From 2025 and 2026

  1. 2026

    The effect of metformin on the pharmacokinetics of rifampicin, isoniazid, and pyrazinamide in adults with tuberculosis

    Rossouw J, Wallis R, Kornfeld H, Singhal A, Maartens G, Wiesner L, et al.

    Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2026 Aug 6:e0074826.

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  2. 2026

    Deep learning approach for probabilistic pulmonary function estimation from chest X-ray and peak expiratory flow rate

    Killing C, Wekerle M, Sutherland JS, Rassool M, Zurba L, Ivanova O, et al.

    Also an author: Wallis RS

    Commun Med (Lond). 2026 Jun 9;6(1):330.

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  3. 2026

    Interventions to reduce the impact of post-tuberculosis lung disease: a scoping review of the literature

    Byrne AL, Günther G, Tadyanemhandu C, de Almeida CPB, Dewi IM, Mitnick CD, et al.

    Also an author: Wallis RS

    BMC Pulm Med. 2026 Jun 4;26(1):345.

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  4. 2026

    A proteome-wide atlas of humoral immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis across the spectrum of disease

    Khan MZ, Irvine EB, Cizmeci D, Davies LRL, Randall AZ, Pablo J, et al.

    Also an author: Wallis RS

    Front Immunol. 2026 Jun 3;17:1810894.

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  5. 2026

    panTB-HM: a multi-arm clinical trial of a pan-TB regimen targeting both host and microbe

    Mudzengi D, Mashatole S, Xiang Q, Adrion C, Glover N, Ngwanto T, et al.

    Also an author: Wallis RS

    Trials. 2026 Feb 27.

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  6. 2026

    Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) elimination slopes from sputum are potential treatment response biomarkers in patients with HIV and pulmonary MAC

    Pasipanodya JG, Nqwata L, Schmitz J, Srivastava S, Wanjalla CN, Wallis RS, Dooley KE

    IJTLD Open. 2026 Feb 11;3(2):97-104.

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