Mother's love' for bacterial babies: the commitment of Audrey Michael, Mition Yoannes and Tilda Orami to medical research.

Audrey Michael, Mition Yoannes and Tilda Orami are long-term health researchers at the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research (PNGIMR). Face-to-face interviews were conducted with all three women for the purpose of profiling women who are leaders in health and medicine in Papua New Guinea. They were asked questions about their early life and childhood, education, work life and training, and mentors who have supported their career path and leadership role. Audrey, Mition and Tilda have all made significant contributions to the PNGIMR and to the health of the people of PNG. In particular, all three have been part of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) studies--looking at the safety, immunogenicity and priming for immunological memory of a 7-valent PCV and investigating the safety and immune responses to two different, recently licensed types of PCV, a 13-valent and a 10-valent vaccine.