The John Ballantyne Lecture will tell the story of the COVID-19 outbreak from the perspective of therapeutic development – specifically how genetic and observational evidence has been gathered alongside clinical trials to rapidly understand and treat COVID-19. Solid clinical evidence is already turning COVID-19 into a treatable disease. The same paradigm can be used in future to find effective therapies for other forms of critical illness, such as sepsis, pancreatitis and influenza.

Dr Kenneth Baillie is an Academic Consultant in Critical Care Medicine and Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. His outstanding work has placed genetic and genomic studies at the centre of our understanding of how infections may be mild or life-threatening.