Mark Achtman is a Canadian who performed research at Max-Planck Institutes in Berlin, Germany from 1971-2008. He moved to University College Cork, Ireland in 2007 as a Professor in Microbiology and Principle Investigator of the Science Foundation of Ireland. He is an internationally recognized and highly cited expert on population genetics of pathogenic bacteria. Prior work focussed on epidemic waves of cerebrospinal meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitides. More recently, he has used the differentiation of the gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori to resolve ancient global patterns of spread of its human host. He has a particular interest in historical evolution of a variety of bacterial pathogens, which has resulted in investigating the correlations between historical accounts of the pandemic spread of plague with microevolution in the causative agent, Yersinia pestis. Currently, considerable efforts are being exerted on understanding the population genetic patterns within the gastrointestinal pathogen, Salmonella enterica.
Dr. Barry Bloom is Harvard University's Distinguished Service Professor of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases and Former Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. He received a bachelor's degree and an honorary ScD from Amherst College, and a PhD from Rockefeller University.
Dr. Bloom is widely recognized for his work in the area of infectious diseases, vaccines, and global health. He served as a consultant to the White House on International Health Policy from 1977 to 1978, was elected President of the American Association of Immunologists, and served as President of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Bloom was an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He has received numerous awards for his scientific work including the first Bristol-Myers Award in Infectious Diseases, Robert Koch Gold Medal, and the Novartis Award in Immunology.
He has been extensively involved with the World Health Organization (WHO) for more than 40 years. He was a member of the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research and chaired the WHO Committees on Leprosy Research and Tuberculosis Research, and chaired the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases. He has served on the National Advisory Councils of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, and the Center for Infectious Diseases, of the CDC. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
After receiving her PhD from the University of Salzburg, Austria, Dr. Carmen Buchrieser conducted different postdoctoral research projects at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France and the University of Madison, Wisconsin, USA. Her major research interest is bacterial pathogenesis. Thus her postdoctoral research projects aimed in understanding virulence mechanisms and genetic diversity of the bacterial pathogens Listeria, Escherichia coli and Yersinia. Since 2003 she focused her research projects on the study of Legionella, the causative agents of Legionnaires' disease, a severe pneumonia that is often fatal when not treated promptly. The genus Legionella contains mainly environmental bacteria but also opportunistic human pathogens like Legionella pneumophila or Legionella longbeachae. Legionella are particular interesting bacteria due to their dual host system, aquatic protozoa and alveolar macrophages during infection.
The projects of Carmen Buchrieser's group at the Institut Pasteur are focused on the identification and study of Legionella virulence factors, with particular emphasis on their function, the mechanisms leading to their acquisition and their evolutionary origin. One key question that they are interested to answer is: Why certain subgroups of strains within a bacterial species are more virulent for humans and what is the genetic basis conferring the advantage in human infection? An important part of Carmen Buchrieser's projects focuses on the study of biodiversity of Legionella with regard to virulence with the objective to understand these virulence differences and to elucidate their underlying genetic bases. The work of her group is guided and facilitated by the knowledge that was build up during the genome sequencing projects of L. pneumophila and L. longbeachae and the availability of post genomic tools that they developed for functional genomics. Based on this knowledge they aim to characterize the molecular, genetic and cellular bases of Legionella infections.
Dr. Jean-Laurent Casanova is a pediatrician and immunologist by training, and in practice, has become a human geneticist investigating infectious diseases. He discovered that life-threatening infectious diseases of childhood may be caused by single-gene inborn errors of immunity. He revealed single-gene mutations that create 'holes' in the immune system of children who are susceptible to specific infectious diseases, yet remain normally resistant to other infectious agents. Dr. Casanova's research started with a simple question: what is it that makes some children develop a severe clinical illness in the course of infection while others exposed to the same microbe remain unharmed? In groundbreaking research, he discovered that single-gene lesions in children can confer selective vulnerability to certain infectious illnesses. Until these discoveries, single-gene lesions were only thought to underlie rare Mendelian traits, predisposing affected children to multiple infectious diseases. Specifically, Dr. Casanova's team has identified single-gene variations predisposing to tuberculosis and other mycobacterial diseases (mutations of the IL12-IFN-γ circuit), invasive pneumococcal disease (mutations of the TLR/IL-1R-NF-κB pathway), herpes simplex virus encephalitis (mutations of the TLR3-IFN-α/β pathway), and chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis (mutations of the IL-17 circuit). These studies have important clinical implications, as they provide means for genetic counseling and a rationale to develop new therapeutic approaches based on an understanding of the host component of infectious diseases. These studies also have important biological implications, as they define the function of host defense genes in natura, i.e. in the setting of a natural ecosystem governed by natural selection. Dr. Casanova's research has already been recognized in important ways. Prior to his move to the USA, he was an international research scholar with the HHMI from 2005 to 2008 and a member of the EMBO and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Dr. Casanova was the recipient of the Professor Lucien Dautrebande Pathophysiology Prize from the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine in 2004 and the 2008 Richard Lounsbery Award from the French and American Academies of Sciences. In 2009, he received a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Zurich and the Oswald Avery Award from the Infectious Disease Society of America. In 2010, he was awarded the E. Mead Johnson Award from the Society for Pediatric Research, and in 2011, the InBev-Baillet Latour Health Prize in Immunology and Infectious Diseases.
Myron S. Cohen is the J. Herbert Bate Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology and Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Cohen received his BS degree, Magna Cum Laude, from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He received an MD degree from Rush Medical College, Chicago Illinois. He completed an Infectious Disease Fellowship at Yale University. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Disease Society of America. Dr. Cohen serves as the Director of the UNC Division of Infectious Disease and the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Disease, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Health. Dr. Cohen serves on the Leadership Groups of the NIH Center for HIV Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI) and the NIH HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN). In 2012 Dr. Cohen will become co-Principal Investigator of the HPTN. Dr. Cohen serves as an Editor of the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases and of the comprehensive textbook Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
Dr. Cohen received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Rush Medical College in 2000. He received the Thomas Parran Award (2005) for lifetime achievement in STD research from the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association. In 2008 Dr. Cohen received the O. Max Gardner Award, the highest honor in the University of North Carolina 16 campus system. Doctor Cohen been repeatedly recognized as one of America's "Top Doctors" and "Best Doctors". Dr. Cohen's research work focuses on the transmission and prevention of transmission of HIV. Dr. Cohen is the architect and Principal Investigator of the multinational study HPTN 052, which in 2011 offered definitive proof that antiretroviral treatment prevents the sexual transmission of HIV-1. This work was recognized by Science Magazine as the "Breakthrough of the Year" in 2011. Dr. Cohen is the author of more than 500 publications. Much of Dr. Cohen's research has been conducted in resource constrained countries, especially in the African country of Malawi and in the People's Republic of China. For more information contact Lisa Chensvold, Director of Communications, UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, http://globalhealth.unc.edu.
Guillaume Duménil is currently directeur de recherche at the Institut National pour la Santé et la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) in Paris, France. After a college training in Paris G. Duménil joined a master's degree program in Genetics at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. This first experience in the field of Cancer biology initiated him to the field of tyrosine kinase dependent signal transduction pathways. During his PhD in the lab headed by Philippe Sansonetti in the Institut Pasteur, G. Duménil explored the intracellular signaling pathways involved in the bacteria-triggered invasion of epithelial cells by Shigella flexneri. This experience on the study of the interaction between Shigella and host cells convinced G. Duménil to pursue a carrier in the field of host pathogen interactions. He continued by joining the lab headed by Ralph Isberg in Boston as a postdoctoral fellow to study the intracellular traffic of Legionella pneumophila. G. Duménil characterized the function and structure of several component of the type IV secretion system that allows the bacterium to avoid killing inside macrophages. At the end of his postdoc G. Duménil obtained a position at INSERM to join the lab headed by Xavier Nassif to study infections caused by the extracellular pathogen Neisseria meningitidis. After obtaining a prestigious starting grant from INSERM (ATIP-Avenir) Guillaume Duménil now heads his own research team in the Paris Center for Cardiovascular Research (PARCC) located in Paris. The main focus of his research is the study of the interaction of pathogenic bacteria with blood vessels during septicemia and meningitis.
German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany
Dr. Lutz Gissmann is a Professor of Virology at the University of Heidelberg and Head of the Division "Genome Modifications and Carcinogenesis" at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). All his scientific life is focused on HPV research. He has published more than 180 peer-reviewed articles and has received several scientific awards.
In 1974 Lutz Gissmann joined the Harald zur Hausen group as a PhD student. Together, the two scientists first reported on the heterogeneity of the human papillomavirus and isolated the HPV types 6 and 11 from genital warts and laryngeal papillomas. Based on molecular techniques developed by Lutz Gissmann, two of zur Hausen's later students were able to clone and characterize the most prevalent virus types in cervical cancer, HPV 16 and HPV 18. In 1983, zur Hausen, Gissmann and colleagues identified HPV 16 in precursor lesions of genital cancer, and in 1985 together with Elisabeth Schwarz, they revealed the genetic organization of HPV DNA and its transcriptional activity in cervical cancer cells.
Professor Gissmann held several Academic positions, e.g. he was a Professor at the Loyola University Chicago (from 1993 to 1997), where he worked on the development of virus-like particles that are the basis of the HPV vaccines. From 1998 – 1999 he worked on the development of a combined prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine as a Vice President of Research and Development for Medigene AG.
Beatrice H. Hahn, M.D. currently serves as Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Hahn received her medical degree from the University of Munich Medical School, and pursued postdoctoral studies at the National Cancer Institute Laboratory of Tumor Cell Virology. She joined the Departments of Medicine and Microbiology at the University of Alabama in 1985. Her seminal contributions in understanding human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections include developing the first molecular clone of HIV-1, discovering the origins of HIV-1 and HIV-2 in non-human primate species in Africa, determining the pathogenic impact of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection on wild chimpanzee populations, and making fundamental observations in the molecular and virologic characterization of numerous HIV and SIV genes and isolates. Dr. Hahn's most recent work describes groundbreaking studies identifying the origin of Plasmodium falciparum, the most deadly form of malaria, in West African gorillas, findings that will spearhead new research to understand host/pathogen interactions that underlie the transmission and pathogenicity of malaria. In 2002, Dr. Hahn was named one of the top 50 women in science by Discover Magazine. Additionally, she has published over 200 research papers, many of which are senior authored manuscripts in Science, Nature, Cell and other prominent journals.
Karolinska Institutet at Huddinge Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
Dr. Hammarström earned his Ph.D. from the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, in 1979, and became a professor at the Institute in 1997. He has been working on various aspects of clinical immunology for the past 30 years, concentrating on the genetics of immunodeficiency diseases/autoimmune diseases and different forms of immunotherapy for these patient categories. He has been contributing to these fields by identifying novel genes associated with immunodeficiency diseases such as XLA (Bruton's disease), IgA deficiency and common variable immunodeficiency. In the immunotherapy field, he has pioneered the use of novel sources of antibodies and antibody fragments for therapeutic use in immunodeficiency patients, using genetically engineered lactic acid bacteria and plants for prophylaxis and therapy in infections affecting mucosal sites. Recent data in the latter field will be presented at the meeting.
Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Bellinzona, Switzerland
In 1976 Antonio Lanzavecchia obtained his degree in Medicine at the University of Pavia where he specialized in Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases. From 1983 to 1999 he was a member of the Basel Institute for Immunology and in 1999 became the founding director of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona, Switzerland. He has been teaching Immunology at the University of Genoa and Siena and since 2009 is professor of Human Immunology at the ETH Zurich. His research has covered several aspects of human immunology: antigen processing and presentation, dendritic cell biology, lymphocyte activation and traffic and, more recently, the cellular basis of T and B cell memory. He is the scientific founder of Humabs, a company that develops human monoclonal antibodies. He received the EMBO medal in 1988 and the Cloëtta prize in 1999.
Denise M. Monack received her Bachelor's in Science in Genetics from the University of California at Davis. She attended graduate school in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University and obtained her Ph.D. in the laboratory of Dr. Stanley Falkow in the field of bacterial pathogenesis in 2002. She is currently an assistant professor in the Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University where she teaches and has a laboratory in which graduate students and postdoctoral students conduct research in the field of bacterial pathogenesis. The primary focus of her research is to understand the genetic and molecular mechanisms of intracellular bacterial pathogenesis. In particular, they study the complex host-pathogen interactions that occur in macrophages. Macrophages express Pattern Recognition Receptors on the surface as well as in the cytosol. Her laboratory focuses on the cytosolic recognition of bacteria that leads to Type I Interferon signaling and Inflammasome activation. They take both genetic and biochemical approaches to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in host recognition pathways leading to inflammation and pathogen evasion mechanisms. In addition, the Monack Lab studies chronic Salmonella infections. Salmonella typhi, the causative agent of the human-specific disease typhoid fever, is capable of causing long-term chronic systemic infections and sporadically is shed in the feces to transmit to new hosts. These persistently infected individuals serve as a significant reservoir for disease transmission. The Monack Lab uses genetic approaches to identify mechanisms of persistence and has recently been studying how this pathogen manipulates host cell migration in microfluidics devices that mimic host cell tissues. They also study the role of the intestinal microbiota in controlling Salmonella infection, disease, and transmissibility.
Dr. Bali Pulendran is a Charles Howard Candler Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Director of the Innate Immunity Program at the Emory Vaccine Center, Emory University in Atlanta. He received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University, and his Ph.D from the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, in Melbourne Australia, under the supervision of Sir Gustav Nossal. He then did his post-doctoral work at Immunex Corporation in Seattle. Dr. Pulendran's work focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which the innate immune system regulates adaptive immunity and harnessing such mechanisms in the design of novel vaccines against global pandemics. More recently, he has developed the use of systems biological approaches to predicting the efficacy of vaccines, and deciphering new correlates of protection against infectious diseases. Dr. Pulendran's research is published in front line journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Nature Immunology, and The Journal of Experimental Medicine. Furthermore, Dr. Pulendran is the recipient of numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health, (including two concurrent MERIT awards), and from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, served on the editorial boards of The Journal of Clinical Investigation and The Journal of Immunology, serves on the Aids Vaccine Research Subcommittee, and is frequently invited to speak in the plenary sessions of many national and international conferences.
Rino Rappuoli is Global Head of Vaccines Research at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics and is based in Siena, Italy. He earned his PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Siena and has served as visiting scientist at Rockefeller University in New York and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Prior to the present position he was head R&D of Sclavo and then head of vaccine research and Chief Scientific Officer of Chiron Corporation. Several molecules he worked with became part, or are near to becoming, licensed vaccines. These include: CRM197 used in H. influenzae, N. meningitides and pneumococcus vaccines; an acellular vaccine against pertussis containing a genetically detoxified pertussis toxin; the first conjugate vaccine against meningococcus C and later against meningococcus ACYW; the MF59 used in a vaccine against pandemic influenza; and the genome-derived vaccine against meningococcus B currently under review by European and Canadian regulatory agencies. He was elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization. Awards conferred include: Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (1991), the Gold Medal by the Italian President (2005), the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal (2009), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Institute of Human Virology in Maryland (2010), and the Excellence Award from the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (2011). He has introduced several novel scientific concepts (genetic detoxification, 1987, cellular microbiology, 1996; reverse vaccinology, 2000; pangenome, 2005).
National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China
Dr. Feng Shao is currently an associate investigator at National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS), Beijing, China. Dr. Shao was a chemistry undergraduate of Peking University from 1991 to 1996 and received his master degree from Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. Dr. Shao was trained as a biochemist and obtained his PhD from University of Michigan in 2003. Prior to returning to China to assume a group leader position at NIBS in 2005, he was a Damon Runyon Postdoc Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Shao's laboratory studies biochemical mechanisms of bacterial infection and host innate immunity. Using pathogens such as Shigella, Salmonella, Enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), Legionella and Burkholderia as the model, Dr. Shao's laboratory has discovered several novel biochemical mechanisms utilized by secreted bacterial virulence effectors in manipulating host functions. 1) The OspF family of type III effectors, conserved in Shigella, Salmonella and plant pathogen P. syringae, harbors a novel phosphothreonine lyase activity that irreversibly "dephosphorylates" host MAPKs, leading to kinase inactivation and inhibited cytokine production. 2) Type III effectors CHBP (Burkholderia) and Cif (EPEC) deamidate ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like protein NEDD8. This modification leads to dysfunctioning of the ubiquitin system and thereby disruption of many important cellular processes. 3) An EPEC type III effector NleE methylates a zinc-finger cysteine in TAB2/3 and diminishes its ubiquitin chain-binding activity, resulting in inactivation of host NF-κB signaling. Dr. Shao's research on innate immunity mainly concerns the role of macrophage inflammasome pathway in counteracting bacterial infection. His laboratory has recently discovered a family of cytosolic NOD-like proteins called NAIPs that function as inflammasome receptors for bacterial flagellin and type III secretion apparatus components in triggering macrophage inflammation. Using a combination of multiple approaches including biochemistry and biochemical reconstitution, cell biology, and bacterial/mouse genetics, Dr. Shao research is aimed to reveal novel molecular mechanisms underlying the interplay between bacterial virulence and host innate immune defense system.
Steven Sinkins holds degrees from the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and has worked at Yale and Notre Dame Universities in the USA and at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Since 2006 he has been Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. The major research focus of the Sinkins lab is the interaction between mosquitoes and Wolbachia inherited bacteria, using molecular genetic and genomic approaches. Wolbachia is capable of rapid spread into populations using cytoplasmic incompatibility, a manipulation of reproduction involving crossing sterilities that can give Wolbachia-infected females an advantage. Recent work has focused on creating transient and inherited infections of non-native strains of Wolbachia in various mosquitoes and examining their effects on the innate immune system, fitness, crossing compatibility and pathogen transmission. Certain strains of the bacterium have been found to strongly inhibit the ability of transinfected mosquitoes to transmit arboviruses and malaria / filarial nematode parasites; a current goal is to translate these findings into robust new strategies for the control of tropical diseases. The mechanisms of cytoplasmic incompatibility are also being investigated.
Natalie Strynadka uses x-ray crystallography and other biophysical tools to study the structure and function of membrane associated proteins and protein complexes that play key roles in antibiotic resistance and bacterial pathogenicity. The goal of her research is to use these high resolution structures as molecular blueprints for the design of novel antibiotics and vaccines. Dr. Strynadka is currently a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She received her Ph.D. in structural biology from the University of Alberta, where she conducted postdoctoral research in the Departments of Biochemistry and Microbiology until undertaking her independent academic position at UBC in 1997. She has been named a HHMI International Scholar, Medical Research Council of Canada Scholar, a Canadian Institute of Health Research Scientist, a Burroughs Wellcome New Investigator in the Pharmacological Sciences, a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Senior Scholar, and a UBC Distinguished University Scholar. She has also received the Merck Frosst Prize, the UBC Killiam Research Prize, and the Steacie Prize. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
