Dereck Tait, MBChB
Biography
Dereck Tait qualified in medicine at the University of Pretoria, South Africa and after some years in clinical medicine specialised in Medical Microbiology and Virology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the then Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London. After some years as a consultant virologist he joined the Wellcome Foundation to work on the development of anti-viral compounds, followed by 20 years of developing compounds and biologics for the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases, including those where the burden of disease is primarily experienced in low and middle-income countries. These roles were at several large pharma and small biotech companies. Over the last 8 years he has been involved in the development of TB vaccines whist employed by a not-for-profit organisation, IAVI (formerly Aeras). During this time, he has taken a number of TB vaccine candidates through phase 1 and phase 2b studies.
Position
IAVI, South Africa