John D. Clements (Chair) is professor and chair of microbiology and immunology, Tulane University School of Medicine. After receiving his doctorate in 1979 from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas, Dr. Clements completed a National Research Council Associateship at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, DC. In 1980, Dr. Clements was appointed as assistant professor in the Departments of Microbiology and Medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine in Rochester, New York. In 1982, Dr. Clements joined the faculty at Tulane University, where he has served as professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology since 1999. Dr. Clements served as Vice Dean for Research from 2006 to 2009, and in 2009 was appointed as Director of the Tulane Center for Infectious Diseases. Dr. Clements is currently Director of the Tulane/Xavier Vaccine Development/Engineering Project supported by the Department of Defense, co-director of the South Louisiana Institute for Infectious Disease Research, and co-director of the Louisiana Vaccine Center, both collaborative projects between Tulane University and Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans.
Research in Dr. Clements’s laboratory has resulted in more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters and 13 issued patents. Dr. Clements currently serves on the Defense Health Board and the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Western Regional Center for Excellence in Biodefense Research and the PATH Enteric Vaccine initiative. In 2002, Dr. Clements chaired the committee to review all military infectious disease
research programs for the Department of Defense. In 2003, and again in 2004, Dr. Clements served as a member of the Iraq Survey Group in Baghdad as a subject-matter expert in weapons of mass destruction and dual-use equipment and programs. Dr. Clements is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and served on active duty from 1966 to 1972. He was honorably discharged at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel from the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves in 1991.
Munirul Alam is senior scientist, International Center for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B). Dr. Alam joined the ICDDR,B in late 2003 as a consultant scientist and was appointed to be a staff scientist in 2007 and senior scientist in 2010. Dr. Alam is the principal investigator (PI) of the National Institutes of Health–funded multiyear cholera study, Epidemiology and Ecology of V. cholerae in Bangladesh, which is running on its third consecutive term at ICDDR,B under collaborative agreements with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Alam has been the coordinator of the Diarrheal Disease Epidemiology and Ecology research group and actively involved in molecular epidemiological and ecological surveillance of cholera in Bangladesh, including monitoring of the plankton community dynamics and climate variables in relation to the seasonal epidemics with the aim of developing a predictive model for cholera and other infectious diseases. Dr. Alam also conducts a hospital-based cholera intervention study, and his research interests include safe drinking water, bacterial community dynamics in human gut and environment, microbial forensics, drug resistance of enteric pathogens, and metagenomics.
Dr. Alam holds bachelor of science and master of science degrees from the University of Dhaka. He started his career as a pharmaceutical microbiologist in 1989 and was appointed lecturer of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Dhaka in 1991. Dr. Alam won the Monbukagusho scholarship and obtained a Ph.D. in microbiology from Okayama University, Japan, in 1996. He was an assistant professor and later an associate professor of Dhaka University. He was on postdoctoral fellowships for different terms in institutions in the United States, Japan, and Germany. He has actively attended more than 50 national and international scientific conferences and served as the oral, invited, and keynote speaker. Dr. Alam also served as chair and cochair of scientific sessions. Dr. Alam has supervised more than 80 research students including M.S., M.Phil., and Ph.D. candidates, and has authored 88 research articles published in peer-reviewed journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and The Lancet. He has been a member of many national and international professional societies including the American Society for Microbiology. For his outstanding contributions in the field of micro-
biology, Dr. Alam has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (2013). He has been a faculty member of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health since 2011, and a visiting fellow of the University of Technology Sydney, Australia (2011-2014). He has been a member of international scientific committees and on the editorial boards of many national and international peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Alam is the former President of the Graduate Microbiologists Association of Bangladesh.
Bruce Budowle is director, Institute of Applied Genetics, and professor, Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of North Texas Health Science Center. Dr. Budowle received a Ph.D. in genetics in 1979 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. From 1979 to 1982, Dr. Budowle was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Working under a National Cancer Institute fellowship, he carried out research predominately on genetic risk factors for such diseases as insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, melanoma, and acute lymphocytic leukemia.
In 1983, Dr. Budowle joined the research unit at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to carry out research, development, and validation of methods for forensic biological analyses. The positions he has held at the FBI include research chemist, program manager for DNA research, chief of the Forensic Science Research Unit, and the senior scientist for the Laboratory Division of the FBI. Dr. Budowle has contributed to the fundamental sciences as they apply to forensics in analytical development, population genetics, statistical interpretation of evidence, and quality assurance. Some of the methods he developed are (1) analytical assays for typing a myriad of protein genetic marker systems; (2) designing electrophoretic instrumentation; (3) developing molecular biology analytical systems to include restriction fragment length polymorphism typing of variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) loci and polymerase chain reaction–based single-nucleotide polymorphism assays, VNTR and short tandem repeat assays, and direct sequencing methods for mitochondrial DNA; (4) new technologies; and (5) designing image analysis systems. Dr. Budowle has worked on laying some of the foundations for the current statistical analyses in forensic biology and defining the parameters of relevant population groups. Dr. Budowle has been directly involved in developing quality assurance (QA) standards for the forensic DNA field. He has been a member of the Scientific Working Group on DNA Methods, chair of the DNA Commission of the International Society of Forensic Genetics, and a member of the DNA Advisory Board. He was one of the architects of the CODIS National DNA database, which maintains DNA
profiles from convicted felons, from evidence in unsolved cases, and from missing persons.
Some of Dr. Budowle’s efforts over the last decade are in counterterrorism, primarily in efforts involving microbial forensics and bioterrorism. Dr. Budowle is heavily involved in the forensic applications on bioterrorism and has been involved in developing the field known as microbial forensics. In the area of microbial forensics, Dr. Budowle has been the chair of the FBI’s Scientific Working Group on Microbial Genetics and Forensics, whose mission was to set QA guidelines, develop criteria for biologic and user databases, set criteria for a national repository, and develop forensic genomic applications. He also has served on the Steering Committee for the Colloquium on Microbial Forensics sponsored by the American Society of Microbiology and was the organizer of three Microbial Forensics Meetings held at The Banbury Center in the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
In 2009, Dr. Budowle became executive director of the Institute of Applied Genetics and professor in the Department of Forensic and Investigative Genetics at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth. His current efforts focus on the areas of human forensic identification, microbial forensics, and emerging infectious diseases. He is working on microbial forensics topics such as attribution, QA, population genetics, next-generation sequencing technology, and sample collection. Dr. Budowle’s commitment to helping families resolve missing persons cases led him to Fort Worth after a lifetime in the Virginia/Washington, DC area in order to collaborate with Health Science Center researchers and advance the knowledge and use of forensics and DNA to improve health and safety of the world’s population. Dr. Budowle has also been instrumental in establishing the DNA-ProKids initiative to identify missing children on an international scale.
Jongsik Chun is associate professor of biology, Seoul National University. Dr. Chun serves on Seoul National University’s Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics Steering Committee. Dr. Chun is associated with a number of institutes at Seoul National University, including the Institute of Microbiology Research, the Genetic Engineering Combustion Institute, and the International Vaccine Institute. He also assists the Rural Development Administration and the Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He has previously served as a research associate at the Center of Marine Biotechnology at the University of Maryland and as senior researcher at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology.
Dr. Chun received his B.Sc. from Seoul National University and completed his Ph.D. at Newcastle University School of Medicine. Dr. Chun completed his postdoctoral work at the Research Center for Molecular
Microbiology at Seoul National University. Dr. Chun is the Associate Editor of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. He serves as an editorial board member for Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (Dutch Kluwer four issues) and Microbes and Environments.
Rita R. Colwell is distinguished university professor, University of Maryland at College Park, and distinguished university professor, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Colwell’s interests are focused on global infectious diseases, water, and health, and she is currently developing an international network to address emerging infectious diseases and water issues, including safe drinking water for both the developed and developing world. Dr. Colwell has shown how changes in climate, adverse weather events, shifts in ocean circulation, and other ecological processes can create conditions that allow infectious diseases to spread. In addition to her academic roles, Dr. Colwell is senior adviser and chairperson of Canon U.S. Life Sciences, and chairman and president of CosmosID, which is exploring the potential applications of molecular diagnostic technologies to the field of life sciences.
Dr. Colwell served as the 11th director of the National Science Foundation from 1998 to 2004. She has previously served as chairman of the Board of Governors of the American Academy of Microbiology and also as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Washington Academy of Sciences, the American Society for Microbiology, the Sigma Xi National Science Honorary Society, and the International Union of Microbiological Societies. Dr. Colwell has also been awarded 54 honorary degrees from institutions of higher education, including her alma mater, Purdue University. Dr. Colwell holds a B.S. in bacteriology and an M.S. in genetics from Purdue University, and a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Washington. She is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She is the recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun bestowed by the emperor of Japan and the National Medal of Science bestowed by the president of the United States. She is a U.S. science envoy and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Nancy D. Connell is professor of medicine, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Rutgers University, and director, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Center for Biodefense. Dr. Connell is professor in the Division of Infectious Disease in the Department of Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (RNJMS) and the Rutgers Biomedical Health Sciences. A Harvard University Ph.D. in microbiology, Dr. Connell’s major research focus is antibacterial drug discovery in respiratory pathogens such as
Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Bacillus anthracis. She is director of the Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) Facility of RNJMS’s Center for the Study of Emerging and Re-emerging Pathogens and chairs the university’s Institutional Biosafety Committee. Dr. Connell has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies since 1993 and serves on numerous NIH study sections and review panels. She has served on a number of committees of the National Academy of Sciences, for example, the Committee on Advances in Technology and the Prevention of Their Application to Next Generation Biowarfare Agents (2004), Trends in Science and Technology Relevant to the Biological Weapons Convention; an International Workshop (2010); the Committee to Review the Scientific Approaches Used in the FBI’s Investigation of the 2001 Bacillus anthracis Mailings (2011) and the Educational Institute for Responsible Science (Malaysia) (2013).
Paul Keim is Cowden endowed chair in microbiology and Arizona regents professor, Northern Arizona University. Dr. Keim is the director of Northern Arizona University’s Microbial Genetics and Genomics Center. He also directs the Pathogen Genomics Division at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), a nonprofit research institute. He maintains his Laboratory Affiliate at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Division of Biosciences. Dr. Keim’s current research interests include genomic analysis of bacterial pathogens and the application of genomic technology to clinical diagnostic problems.
Dr. Keim’s laboratory has developed high-resolution strain typing analysis methods for the forensic analysis of Bacillus anthracis, Yersinia pestis, and Francisella tularensis. He has participated in collaborative projects with scientists from the former Soviet Union to understand the ecology and epidemiology of these pathogens.
Dr. Keim has served on grant review panels for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health; on advisory groups for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and on three previous National Research Council committees. He received a B.S. in biology and chemistry from Northern Arizona University and a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Kansas. He has done postdoctoral work in genetics, genomics, and biotechnology. He is currently a member of the FBI’s Scientific Working Group on Forensic Analysis of Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism, the National Science Advisory Board for Biodefense, and the Executive Advisory Committee for the Pacific Southwest Regional Center for Biodefense. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.
Juncai Ma is assistant director of the Institute of Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and deputy chairman of the Expert Committee on CAS Databases. Dr. Ma is the director of the Committee on Type Culture Collection CAS and commissioner of the CODATA Chinese National Committee, and executive of the World Federation for Culture Collections. Currently he is mainly engaged in the research work on bio-grid, parallel indexing, super-large-scaled full-text retrieval technology, a search engine of remote heterogeneous databases, Linux Cluster System, and comprehensive utilization of information technology in the field of biology. Meanwhile, he is in charge of the implementation of a variety of projects, including the China Microbial Resource Database, the Information Network System of CAS Biology Specimen Museum, the Microbial Information Gateway of National Scientific Digital Library, the E-Science Bio-Grid, the National Scientific Data Sharing Platform, as well as the Information Network of Chinese Biotechnology and Industry. In 2006, he received a Ph.D. from the Biological Resource Department of Mie University, Japan.
Alemka Markotić is professor at the Medical School of the University of Rijeka, associate member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and lecturer on bioterrorism and biodefense at the Forensic Sciences Study at the University of Split, Croatia. Dr. Markotić is head of the Research Department and head of the Department for Clinical Immunology, University Hospital for Infectious Diseases (UHID) in Zagreb, Croatia. She received her M.D. at the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (1989), an M.S. in medical microbiology and parasitology (1996), and a Ph.D. in infectious diseases (1999) from the University of Zagreb Medical School.
Dr. Markotić began her biomedical research career at the University of Sarajevo Medical School in Bosnia and Herzegovina studying ribavirin treatment of hantaviruses during which time she collaborated with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Medical Diseases (USAMRIID) in Frederick, Maryland. She later received a National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at USAMRIID to conduct research on the immunopathenogenesis of hantaviruses. On the basis of this work, she received the Joel Dalymple Memorial Award (American Society of Virology) and the USAMRIID Coin.
Dr. Markotić’s research on hantaviruses has earned her seven national and nine international awards. She has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers, 14 book chapters and delivered over 90 presentations at national and international conferences. She has been the principal investigator on research projects studying immune responses to intracellular pathogens, zoonoses, and apoptosis in hantavirus-infected 293HEK
cells. At the UHID, Dr. Markotić established the Center for Emerging and Re-emerging Diseases with nine international and six national partners, and she is responsible for managing the first Croatian BSL-3 laboratory at the UHID. At the request of the European Union (EU) Commission, Dr. Markotić designed, organized, and presented a biosafety/biosecurity training workshop in Beijing, China, in May 2009. She worked for several years at the Institute of Immunology in Zagreb as a head of the Viral Vaccines and Interferon Quality Control Unit.
She is a member of the Council of the International Society for Hantaviruses and the Board for Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, was a member of the Committee of the Croatian Science Foundation and the National Council for Science, and was vice president of the Scientific Council in the Scope of Biomedicine and Health. In 2004, 2005, and 2009, she was an expert evaluator for FP6 projects (EU Commission, Brussels) in immunology and emerging infectious diseases. In the 1990s, during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, she helped organize the Caritas Pharmacy and Health Care Unit that addressed the health needs of those affected by the conflict.
Geoffrey Smith is professor of pathology and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow, Emmanuel College, Cambridge University. Dr. Smith is a British virologist and medical research authority in the area of Vaccinia virus and the family of Poxviruses. Dr. Smith completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of Leeds in 1977, and in 1981 gained a Ph.D. in virology while in London. Between 1981 and 1984, while he was working in the United States at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Smith developed and pioneered the use of genetically engineered live vaccines. Between 1985 and 1989, he lectured at the University of Cambridge.
Prior to 2002, he was based at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford. Between 1988 and 1992, his work was funded by the Jenner Fellowship from the Lister Institute; he became a governor of the institute in 2003. In 1992 the Society for General Microbiology awarded Dr. Smith its Fleming Award for outstanding work by a young microbiologist. In 2002, he was elected as a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2003, he was invited to become a fellow of the Royal Society and in 2005 was awarded the Feldburg Foundation Prize for his work on poxviruses. Smith was editor-in-chief of the Journal of General Virology until 2008 and chairs the World Health Organization’s Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research. As of 2009, he remains head of the Department of Virology at Imperial College London and is president of the International Union of Microbiological Societies.
