Veerle Lejon

Dr Veerle Lejon is research director at the Intertryp unit of the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) in Montpellier. Her research focuses on human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) and she is member of the WHO human African trypanosomiasis expert panel. Veerle obtained her PhD in 2002, investigating trypanosome invasion in the brain, in search of diagnostic markers for the neurological disease stage. In 2005, Veerle did a post-doc at the McGill University in Montreal. Until 2013, she worked at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium on staging of HAT, shortened post-treatment follow-up, diagnostic accuracy of parasitological tests, and development and evaluation of antibody detection tests. Dr Lejon works in close collaboration with partners from HAT endemic countries, and as a specialist in diagnostics, she is actively involved in training at the academic but also at the health facility level. Having spent time with mobile teams in disease endemic zones, she is well aware about the practical challenges faced by disease control programs. These form the basis of Dr Lejons actual interests including development of diagnostic algorithms adapted to a disease elimination context, on which she coordinates an EDCTP project.