Isabel Delany completed her PhD in UCC Ireland in the areas of bacterial genetics and gene expression. With over 20 years of experience in vaccine research, her major contributions have been in characterizing virulence factors of bacterial pathogenesis and identification of vaccine antigens, and to the design and development of technology platforms for engineering vaccine components. In her current role as Head of Antigen Identification and Molecular Biology, she leads a highly skilled group of molecular microbiologists driving the discovery of novel vaccines within the GSK research pipeline. She is also the PhD director of the GSK Sciences Academy and is responsible for the scientific oversight of the internal PhD and Postdoc program in collaboration with academic institutes worldwide, hosting over 30 students and postdocs annually on site performing research on industrial vaccine projects.