University of Groningen
Improving antimicrobial therapy for Buruli ulcer
Omansen, Till Frederik
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Publication date: 2019
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Omansen, T. F. (2019). Improving antimicrobial therapy for Buruli ulcer: Pre-clinical studies towards highly efficient, short-course therapy. University of Groningen.
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163 About the author
aBOuT The auThOr
Till Frederik Omansen was born on April 4th 1989 in Bückeburg, Germany. He grew up in the
Weserbergland area in Lower-Saxony, Germany. He attended high school at the Viktoria-Lu-ise-Gymnasium Hameln and the Humboldt-Gymnasium Bad Pyrmont, both in Germany and also spent some time at Rockford High School in Rockford, Michigan, USA in the framework of an international student exchange. Shortly after graduating from high school in 2008, Till moved to Brussels, Belgium to serve as a volunteer for one year in a neighborhood project for children and youths in an underprivileged area. He learned French and after completion of his volunteer service continued to give homework help and counselling to youths in the same organization, while studying biomedical sciences at the Catholic University of Louvain at the Brussels medical campus. In 2010 he enrolled in the International Bachelor of Medi-cine (IBMG), Global Health Profile at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. During his time in Groningen, Till’s interest in tropical medicine and global health was sparked. He completed a 4-months research stay in Benin at the Buruli ulcer diagnosis and treat-ment center in Lalo. Till also attended the Junior Scientific Masterclass at the University of Groningen where he trained in research methods and acquired basic laboratory skills. These were applied in two student research projects on Staphylococcus aureus in the laboratory of molecular bacteriology at the University Medical Center Groningen. After completion of his B.Sc., Till travelled to Australia to spent a year at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infec-tion and Immunity at the University of Melbourne. During this time, he focused on in-vivo models of Buruli ulcer, transmission research and in-vitro drug testing. Back in Groningen, Till obtained a scholarship for combining his MD-training with a PhD at the University of Groningen. Based on prior experiences in Benin and equipped with laboratory skills from his work in Australia, a research curriculum addressing the need for a short-course therapy regimen for Buruli ulcer was chosen. During his PhD-research, Till completed two laboratory rotations at the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis in Baltimore, USA. There, he worked on in-vivo drug development for Buruli ulcer and tuberculosis. The curriculum was comple-mented with work at the Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, where Till worked on the epidemiology of the neglected skin diseases Buruli ulcer, yaws and mycetoma. Till presented research at various international congresses in the Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and the USA and spent short research stays in Ghana and Sudan. His clinical training was conducted at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands and the European Medical School Oldenburg, Germany with electives in emergency medicine at the German Armed Forces Hospital Westerstede / Klinikzentrum Ammerland and in tropical medicine at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, both in Germany. Till graduated from his
164
About the author
MD in April 2018 and for participation in extracurricular activities was awarded his M.Sc. degree with honors. As of January 2019, Till follows a combined career as a researcher at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine with the Department of Clinical Trials and as a resident doctor at the I. Department of Medicine at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.
