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Speaker Biographies
Sylvain Aldighieri, M.D., a French national, earned an M.D. from the University of Marseille, is qualified in Tropical Medicine from the University of Paris, and has followed postgraduate studies in Epidemiology and Tropical Microbiology from the Institut Pasteur Paris. During the past 20 years, he has been posted in various locations in Africa and the Americas as a Medical Officer for the French government and for the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr. Aldighieri is currently the coordinator of the International Health Regulations, Alert and Response and Epidemic Diseases Unit, with PAHO/WHO.
Daniel Bausch, M.D., M.P.H.&T.M., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Tropical Medicine and Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, at the Tulane University Health Sciences Center. He is trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases with a Master’s of Public Health in Tropical Medicine degree. Dr. Bausch is presently seconded to the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 6 in Lima, Peru, where he is the Head of the Virology and Emerging Infections Department. He specializes in the research and control of emerging tropical viruses. Formerly with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Special Pathogens Branch, Dr. Bausch has extensive experience in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia combating pathogens, such as Ebola and Lassa viruses, hantavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. He serves as a frequent consultant for the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations, and National Institutes of Health, and he recently returned from Guinea and Sierra Leone, where he worked to arrange and provide clinical care to patients with Ebola virus disease as a WHO consultant.
He currently collaborates with the WHO, the U.S. government, and the CDC to promote and conduct applied research on Ebola virus, develop guidelines and spur innovation on appropriate personal protective equipment, and explore the possible use of experimental therapies and vaccines, as well as contributing to preparedness training for clinicians in West Africa, the United States, and Latin America. Dr. Bausch places a strong emphasis on capacity building in all his projects and also has a keen interest in the role of the scientist in promoting health and human rights.
Colin Bucks, M.D., is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford in the Division of Emergency Medicine and the Medical Director for the Office of Emergency Management. He is a Medical Team Manager for the Federal Emergency Management Agency Urban Search & Rescue California Task Force 3. Additionally, he leads Stanford’s humanitarian disaster response program and has responded to the earthquake in Haiti, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and the Ebola outbreak in Liberia. Dr. Bucks completed his medical training and emergency medicine residency at Temple University School of Medicine. He continued his training by participating in an Emergency Medical Services/Disaster Medicine at Albert Einstein in Philadelphia. Following this he took a short break from medicine to fight fires with the U.S. Forest Service and gain concrete experience in the implementation of the Incident Command System. Beyond this Dr. Bucks’s clinical care is informed by his prior careers as a short order cook, landscaper, bicycle messenger, and middle school teacher in the Baltimore City Public School System.
Reinhard Burger, Ph.D., is the President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), a position he has held since 2010. At RKI, he has also served as the Head of the Department for Infectious Diseases as well as Vice President. Dr. Burger earned his degrees at the Institute for Medical Microbiology at the University of Mainz, Germany. He has served as professor of immunology at the University of Heidelberg and is currently professor of immunology at the Free University of Berlin, a position he has held since 1989. He has been a visiting scientist at various institutions abroad, including the National Institutes of Health, Harvard Medical School, and the Medical University in Wuhan, P.R. China. His major research areas include the immunological complement system, anaphylatoxins, differentiation of antigens on lymphoid cells, and transmission of infectious diseases through blood transfusion and plasma products. In 1993 he was appointed Chairman of the National Advisory Committee Blood (Arbeitskreis Blut) of the German Federal Ministry of Health, which advises the federal government on aspects of infection safety and efficient use of blood products.
Inger K. Damon, M.D., Ph.D., FIDSA, serves as the incident manager for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Ebola response and as the
Director of the Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, positions she has held since 2014. Dr. Damon began her career as a scientist in the Poxvirus Section to work on monkeypox epidemiology and host–pathogen interactions, and to aid in development of and work on the U.S. smallpox research agenda using live variola virus. She is also current director of the two World Health Organization Collaborating Centers for Smallpox and other Poxvirus Infections, where she works and trains others in high containment (biosafety level [BSL]-3 and BSL-4 laboratories). Her research interests include disease mechanisms, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of viral diseases, as well as understanding the molecular basis of viral morphogenesis and cellular pathogenesis. Dr. Damon is the author of multiple book chapters and has authored and co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications relating to poxviruses and poxvirus-associated diseases.
Joseph Fair, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., is a virologist and seasoned public health professional with extensive experience conducting high-impact, entrepreneurial public health surveillance and research programs in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Eastern Europe. Dr. Fair is a Senior Advisor to the Fondation Mérieux USA and was a cofounder and former Vice President of Metabiota, Incorporated, where he created a $50 million research and development portfolio, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Dr. Fair is a specialist in viral hemorrhagic fever viruses and public health response and management. Prior to Metabiota, Dr. Fair served as the Chief Project Scientist for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Biological Threat Reduction Agency Program in Ukraine and as a staff scientist for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. He received his bachelor’s degree in Biology from Loyola University and Ph.D. and M.S.P.H. degrees from Tulane University, where he developed a novel recombinant diagnostic platform for Lassa fever. In 2007, Dr. Fair’s research and efforts directly resulted in the reestablishment of the Kenema government hospital’s ability to diagnose both acute and recent Lassa virus infections by both molecular and serological techniques. Having trained under Nobel Laureate Francoise Barré-Sinoussi and virology legend C. J. Peters, Dr. Fair has traveled the world looking for pathogenic viruses in their endemic settings, and is considered an expert in emerging infectious diseases in sub-Saharan African and public health program implementation.
Heinz Feldmann, M.D., Ph.D., is chief of the Rocky Mountain Laboratories Laboratory of Virology and Chief Scientist of the RML biosafety level (BSL)-4 laboratories. He has nearly 25 years of experience working in BSL-3 and BSL-4 laboratories in four different locations. As an adviser to the World Health Organization, Dr. Feldmann has been part of field research and outbreak management teams studying emerging viral infections in Africa and Asia. His research and
infectious disease expertise is in viral hemorrhagic fevers caused by filoviruses, arenaviruses, and bunyaviruses. Additional interests lay in emerging and reemerging henipaviruses and influenza viruses.
Keiji Fukuda, M.D., M.P.H., has been the Assistant Director-General (ADG) for Health Security, World Health Organization, since September 2010. Before this, he was Special Adviser on Pandemic Influenza to the Director-General, ADG for Health Security and Environment ad interim, Director of the Global Influenza Programme (GIP), Coordinator of GIP, and Scientist in GIP. Dr. Fukuda has extensive experience with global and national public health activities, outbreak investigations and research related to emerging diseases (including chronic fatigue syndrome, severe acute respiratory syndrome, avian influenza H5N1 and H7N9, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and pandemic influenza H1N1), and regional and global emergencies due to multiple causes. He has been extensively involved in international negotiations, and his current responsibilities encompass global health security–related issues, such as food safety, pandemic and epidemic infectious diseases, antimicrobial drug resistance, global alert and monitoring, implementation of the International Health Regulations, the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework, and the Codex Alimentarius.
Thomas W. Geisbert, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. From 1985 to 2007, Dr. Geisbert held a number of positions at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, last serving as Chief of the Department of Viral Pathology and Ultrastructure. Dr. Geisbert codiscovered the Reston species of Ebola virus in 1989. This work was the subject of many articles in the scientific literature and popular press, including Richard Preston’s best-selling novel The Hot Zone. He is an author on 145 original articles and book chapters, including articles in Nature, Nature Medicine, Science Translational Medicine, and the Lancet. Dr. Geisbert has more than 26 years of experience working in biosafety level 4 containment. His research focuses on emerging viruses, with a particular emphasis on viruses causing hemorrhagic fever, including Ebola, Marburg, and Lassa. More recently his efforts have also focused on Nipah and Hendra viruses. Dr. Geisbert holds two U.S. patents on filovirus vaccines and treatments and has filed three provisional U.S. patents on filovirus and arenavirus vaccines. He is the recipient of two Department of the Army Commander’s Awards for Civilian Service.
Stephen Gire, M.P.H., is a Research Scientist in the Sabeti lab at Harvard University and the Broad Institute focusing on viral evolution and diagnostic implementation for some of the world’s deadliest diseases. Mr. Gire’s work has focused on infectious diseases, such as West Nile, Dengue fever, monkeypox, Ebola, Lassa fever, and cholera. Through training at the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and a 3-year fellowship with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Whitehead Institute, Mr. Gire conducts onsite training in biological techniques to laboratory staff throughout Africa. Mr. Gire holds a Master’s of Public Health from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and he is a co-founder of Congo Medical Relief, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit delivering medical supplies to rural hospitals in Central Africa.
Colonel Mark G. Kortepeter, M.D., M.P.H., is Associate Dean for Research at the School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). He recently served as the Director of the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program (IDCRP) at USUHS from August 2010 to March 2014. The IDCRP conducts clinical research on militarily relevant infectious diseases at 10 medical treatment facilities across the country. An Associate Professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine and Biodefense Consultant for the Army Surgeon General, Dr. Kortepeter is board certified in infectious diseases and preventive medicine. Dr. Kortepeter received his B.A. from Harvard College, his M.D. from New Jersey Medical School, and his M.P.H. from Harvard School of Public Health. He spent seven and a half years at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, where he served in several roles, including Deputy Commander (equivalent to Chief Operations Officer), Deputy Chief of the Virology Division, and Chief of the Medical Division. His deployments include Chief of Preventive Medicine for the U.S. forces in Bosnia in 1997 and the Special Medical Augmentation/Response Team for Investigational New Drugs, Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom, Kuwait, in 2003. His other prior assignments include staff internist at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Chief of Preventive Medicine at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Dr. Kortepeter has specific expertise and interest in the pathophysiology of Ebola virus infection and investigational vaccines and treatments as well as management of laboratory exposures to potential biological weapons threats.
Michael Kurilla, M.D., Ph.D., is the Director of the Office of Biodefense, Research Resources, and Translational Research as well as Associate Director for Biodefense Product Development for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). His primary role is to provide overall institute coordination for product development of medical countermeasures against bioterror threats and other emerging infectious diseases. He received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. He earned his M.D.-Ph.D. from Duke University. He took his postgraduate medical training in Pathology at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Elliott Kieff at Harvard Medical School as a Life Sciences Research Foundation Fellow followed by a Markey Scholar Award. At the University of Virginia, he was an Assistant Professor of Pathology
as well as Co-director of the Laboratory of Molecular Diagnostics and Associate Director for Clinical Microbiology. He moved to the private sector working in anti-infective drug development at Dupont Pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Wyeth. He subsequently joined the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) as a Medical Officer. In 2005, he was named to his current positions within NIAID.
Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum, M.D., Ph.D., is the Director of the National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB) in the DRC. Dr. Muyembe-Tamfum began his career as a professor of Microbiology at the Krishna University Medical School in 1976, where he was then appointed dean of the faculty in 1978. His research interests in Ebola virus disease, however, began in 1976, when he investigated the first case of Ebola. Since then, he has developed immunological and molecular laboratory techniques for diagnosis of Ebola, and has been involved in control of several Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring countries as the chairman of the scientific and technical coordination committee. Dr. Muyembe-Tamfum currently serves as a scientific adviser to the World Health Organization in several expert groups and has received distinguished awards for his work, including the National Gold Medal and the Paul Harris Fellow Award of Rotary International. He has authored and co-authored more than 100 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Muyembe received his medical training at the University of Lovanium, Leopoldville (Kinshasa), and earned his Ph.D. in virology at the University of Louvain, Belgium.
Bruce S. Ribner, M.D., M.P.H., is a Professor of Medicine in Infectious Diseases at the Emory University School of Medicine, and Medical Director of the Emory University Hospital Serious Communicable Diseases Unit. He serves as the Epidemiologist for Emory University Hospital and the Emory Clinic, and as Assistant Director of the Occupational Injury Management Department at Emory University Hospital. Dr. Ribner is a member of the Working Group of the Scientific Interactions Subcommittee of the National Interagency Biodefense Campus and of the working group on guidance for clinical management of filovirus and arenavirus hemorrhagic fevers for the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He also serves on the Occupational Exposure On Call Consult Committee for the Intramural Clinical Management and Operations Branch of the Division of Clinical Research at NIAID.
Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D., is a Professor of Immunology and Microbial Science at The Scripps Research Institute. Additionally, she serves as the Director of the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Immunotherapeutic Consortium, an organization that seeks to unite the field of virology to advance understanding of and therapeutics against Ebola, Marburg, Lassa, and other viruses. Her research investigates Ebola pathogenicity, filovirus mechanisms of cellular entry and immune
suppression, and human antibody and medical responses against filoviruses. One of her recent discoveries, which proved the constant rearrangement of viral proteins, expanded the central dogma of molecular biology. Dr. Saphire has received numerous awards for her contributions, including the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering, Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease and Career Awards in the Biomedical Sciences from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, young investigator awards from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the American Society of Microbiology, and the Surhain Sidhu award for the most outstanding contribution to the field of diffraction by a person within 5 years of earning a Ph.D. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and she serves on the Scientific Leadership Board of the Global Virus Network.
Armand Sprecher, M.D., M.P.H., is an emergency physician and epidemiologist who has worked with Médecins Sans Frontières since 1997. He has been involved with filovirus outbreak response since 2000, including working in the field during the outbreaks in Uganda 2000, Angola 2005, the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2007, and the current outbreak in West Africa. Between outbreaks, aside from filovirus disease issues, Dr. Sprecher works mostly on health informatics. He has also worked with the International Medical Corps and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service.
Oyewale Tomori, D.V.M., Ph.D., FASTMH, is currently the President of the Nigerian Academy of Science. He was the pioneer Vice-Chancellor at the Redeemer’s University, Nigeria. He is a recipient of the Nigerian National Order of Merit, Nigeria’s highest award for academic and intellectual attainment. As professor of virology at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, he investigated viral infections and elucidated the properties of the Orungo virus, which is now registered with the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. In 1981, he received the U.S. Public Health Service Certificate for his contribution to Lassa Fever Research. From 1994 to 2004, he served as Regional Virologist for the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa Region, where he established the African Regional Polio Laboratory Network that provided laboratory diagnostic support for polio eradication and became the forerunner of regional diagnostic laboratory networks for other diseases. He has been involved in the investigations of outbreaks of filoviruses, including yellow fever and Ebola virus disease in many African countries. Dr. Tomori serves on several national and international advisory bodies, including the Nigeria Expert Review Committee on Polio Eradication and Routine Immunization; the U.S. Institute of Medicine Committee on Sustainable Global Surveillance of Zoonotic Diseases and the Committee on Identifying and Prioritizing New Preventive Vaccines for Development; the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE); and the African Science Academy
Development Initiative/U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine/Network of African Science Academies Study Team on Country Ownership of Africa’s Development, where he serves as co-chairman.
Jonathan Towner, Ph.D., works in the Viral Special Pathogens Branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). His team focuses primarily on ecological aspects of Ebola and Marburg virus biology with emphasis on identifying their reservoir hosts. Dr. Towner’s team also studies the mechanisms used by these viruses to persist in nature long term, and potential drivers of virus spillover to humans. Recent accomplishments include the discovery of the Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus), the only known filovirus reservoir, as a natural reservoir for Marburg virus, and the discovery of Bundibugyo Ebolavirus, the newest member of the Ebolavirus genus. In addition to his ecological investigations, Dr. Towner responds on occasion to filovirus outbreaks in Africa to operate molecular diagnostic field labs. In this capacity, he has established or operated diagnostic labs at four major filovirus outbreaks since 2000, including the CDC lab in Bo, Sierra Leone, in October 2014. Dr. Towner has been well trained in filovirus biology and ecology by leading authorities in the field, including Drs. Stuart Nichol, Thomas Ksiazek, Robert Swanepoel, and Pierre Rollin. Dr. Towner has more than 22 years of training as a molecular virologist and 17 years of experience conducting virus research under biosafety level-4 containment.
