Sheena McCormack, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology

Sheena McCormack has worked on HIV prevention trials since 1994, was awarded a Chair at Imperial College in 2012, and at UCL in 2017. Her clinical attachment, now honorary, is to 56 Dean Street, which is part of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

She has worked on early phase trials and experienced both extremes of effectiveness trials: a vaginal microbicide trial with over 9,000 women enrolled through four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that ran to conclusion but observed no benefit, and the PROUD PrEP pilot that enrolled just over 500 men who have sex with men through sexual health clinics in England, which reported early due to high incidence in those with no access to PrEP and overwhelming benefit from PrEP.

Subsequently she has worked on a large PrEP trial in England, an internet trial of self-testing, a COVID-19 vaccine trial, and currently on a multi-arm HIV prevention trial in Sub-Saharan Africa and a prophylactic HIV vaccine trial in Europe.   

Selected publications

Szubert AJ, Pollock KM, Cheeseman HM, Alagaratnam J, Bern H, Bird O, Boffito M, Byrne R, Cole T, Cosgrove CA, Faust SN, Fidler S, Galiza E, Hassanin H, Kalyan M, Libri V, McFarlane LR, Milinkovic A, O'Hara J, Owen DR, Owens D, Pacurar M, Rampling T, Skene S, Winston A, Woolley J, Yim YTN, Dunn DT, McCormack S, Shattock RJ; COVAC 1 Study Team. COVAC1 phase 2a expanded safety and immunogenicity study of a self-amplifying RNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. EClinicalMedicine. 2023 Jan 13;56:101823. doi: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101823 PMID: 36684396

Rodger AJ, McCabe L, Phillips AN, Lampe FC, Burns F, Ward D, Delpech V, Weatherburn P, Witzel TC, Pebody R, Kirwan P, Gabriel M, Khawam J, Brady M, Fenton KA, Trevelion R, Collaco-Moraes Y, McCormack S, Dunn D. Free HIV self-test for identification and linkage to care of previously undetected HIV infection in men who have sex with men in England and Wales (SELPHI): an open-label, internet-based, randomised controlled trial. Lancet HIV. 2022 Dec;9(12):e838-e847. doi: 10.1016/S2352-3018(22)00266-1. PMID: 36460023

Viegas EO, Kroidl A, Munseri PJ, Missanga M, Nilsson C, Tembe N, Bauer A, Joachim A, Joseph S, Mann P, Geldmacher C, Fleck S, Stöhr W, Scarlatti G, Aboud S, Bakari M, Maboko L, Hoelscher M, Wahren B, Robb ML, Weber J, McCormack S, Biberfeld G, Jani IV, Sandström E, Lyamuya E; TaMoVac study group. (2018) Optimizing the immunogenicity of HIV prime-boost DNA-MVA-rgp140/GLA vaccines in a phase II randomized factorial trial design. PLoS One. Nov 29;13(11):e0206838. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206838. eCollection 2018. PMID: 30496299 Mocumbi S, Gafos M, Munguambe K, Goodall R, McCormack S, on behalf of the Microbicides Development Programme. High HIV prevalence and incidence among women in Southern Mozambique: evidence from the MDP microbicide feasibility study. PLOS One (2017) Mar 28;12(3):e0173243. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173243 PMID: 28350843

McCormack S, Dunn DT, Desai M, Dolling D, Gafos M, Gilson R, Sullivan AK et al. Pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent the acquisition of HIV-1 infection (PROUD): effectiveness results from the pilot phase of a pragmatic open-label randomised trial. Lancet 2016 Jan 2;387(10013):53-60. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00056-2. Epub 2015 Sep 9. PMID: 26364263

McCormack S, Ramjee G, Kamali A, Rees H, Crook A, Gafos M, Jentsch U, Pool R, Chisembele M, Kapiga S, Mutemwa R, Vallely A, Palanee T, Sookrajh Y, Lacey CJ, Darbyshire J, Grosskurth H, Profy A, Nunn A, Hayes R, Weber J. PRO2000 vaginal gel for the prevention of HIV infection: results of the MDP301 Phase III randomised microbicide trial.  The Lancet.  2010 376: 1329-37. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61086-0. PMID:20851460

Research Interests

• The development and implementation of new technologies for HIV prevention:
• vaccines
• microbicides (when drug is delivered directly to the genital tract)
• pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)
• The integration of anthopological research into clinical trials protocols to better understand risk and adherence behaviours

Research Areas

• HIV