Our scientific working groups are:
These are complemented by the following cross-cutting working groups:
For more information about the Working Groups, please contact network@pentafoundation.org.
The HIV and Viral Hepatitis Working Group’s overall aim for HIV research is to contribute to Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG-3) of ending HIV/AIDS by 2030. For pregnant people, newborns (preterm and term), infants, children and adolescents living with HIV, the Working Group aims to contribute to this goal by generating evidence on how to optimise treatment of HIV, including advanced disease and HIV cure strategies, as well as prevent infections in infants born to people living with HIV. For children who are HIV/ART exposed uninfected, the Working Group will improve the evidence base on the natural history and potential interventions, to improve outcomes.
The Working Group’s overall aim for pregnancy and paediatric viral hepatitis is to contribute to the elimination of viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030. One key aspect will be to evaluate the implementation of the 2024/25 WHO hepatitis B guidelines and assess promising new treatment options for viral hepatitis in childhood.
The overall aim for the Serious Bacterial and Fungal Infections Working Group, in the context of increasing antimicrobial resistance, is to contribute to improved prevention and management of these infections in infants and children. The focus is on neonatal (preterm and term) and paediatric sepsis, invasive fungal infections in at risk populations as well as other severe bacterial and fungal infections requiring inpatient treatment (e.g. pneumonia).
This will be achieved by assessing management approaches and specific treatments as well as evaluating Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) strategies.
The aim for the Respiratory Infections Working Group is to improve prevention and management of high burden respiratory pathogens or those with epidemic potential for pregnant people, infants, children and adolescents. Infections of interest include RSV, TB and influenza. The working group aims to promote development of new medicinal products for both prevention and treatment.
TB research will focus on diagnostics and on better management for children, including dose evaluation of new drugs for treating all types of TB and TB-HIV co-infection.
The Congenital and Perinatal Infections Working Group aims to improve prevention and treatment of infections for which there are severe and often lifelong health consequences (e.g. CMV, syphilis, Zika, HTLV1). The focus is on prevention of vertical acquisition, as well as management when infection does occur. A further research area is how congenital and perinatal infections influence the developing immune system.
The Basic Science Working Group will establish a distributed network of laboratories capable of performing omics techniques and analysing bioinformatics data to support studies.
The Clinical Pharmacology Working Group will contribute expertise to studies across the Penta infections areas to ensure safe and effective dosing of treatment for infections in pregnancy and paediatrics. This includes incorporating dose finding and/or simplification studies within late phase trials where appropriate.
The Education and Training Working Group will deliver training courses across a wide range of geographic areas and scientific topics, in line with the priority themes of other Working Groups.
The Early Career Researchers Working Group will support the development of early career researchers within the network to become the leaders of tomorrow.