The GHI Global Health Tuesday Webinar on Tuesday, November 19, 2024, from 9-10am (CST), featured UW–Madison Global Health Institute Director Jorge Osorio moderating a timely conversation about pandemic preparedness with Exploring Global Health Networks with Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition (APDC) with researchers from the UW–Madison community and Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition.
GHI Director Jorge Osorio led the discussion with Mary Rodgers, Associate Research Fellow, Abbott Diagnostics; Juan Pablo Hernandez Ortiz, Director, GHI One Health Center-Colombia; and Sunil Solomon, Chairman, YRGCARE, and Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Click here to see the recording on our YouTube Channel.
MEET THE MODERATOR:
Jorge Osorio, DVM, Ph.D., M.S., is a professor in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UW–Madison.
Osorio has had a lengthy career in medical sciences, including virology, field epidemiological studies, vaccinology, antivirals and vector control programs. He is also the co-director of a Colombia-Wisconsin One Health Consortium, a joint effort between the University of Wisconsin and Universidad Nacional in Colombia that is studying emerging diseases and one-health issues. Osorio recently founded VaxThera, a Colombian-based company that will produce vaccines and biologicals for Colombia and the region.
He was also a co-founder and chief Scientific officer of Inviragen, a biotechnology company that developed a novel chimeric tetravalent dengue vaccine that recently completed successfully Phase 3 clinical trials. He also developed vaccines against chikungunya, influenza, rabies, plague and many other emerging infectious diseases. Osorio also has served as vice president of Research and vice president of Government Affairs for the Vaccine Business Division of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. His industry career also included positions at Heska Corporation (Ft. Collins, Colorado), Merial LTD (Athens, Georgia), and Chiron-Powderject Vaccines (Madison, Wisconsin).
He has more than 30 years of research and industry experience with more than 130 scientific publications in international journals and 32 patents.
MEET THE PANELISTS:
Mary Rodgers, PhD is an Associate Research Fellow in Abbott’s diagnostics business.
In her role, Mary manages research from the Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition, the first industry-led global scientific and public health partnership dedicated to the early detection of and rapid response to future pandemic threats. As part of the coalition, over 20 sites around the world monitor circulating and emerging pathogens to help quickly detect outbreaks, and then work together with health officials to minimize the spread.
Mary also tracks the diversity of infectious diseases including HIV, hepatitis and SARS-CoV-2 to track new variant’s impact on diagnostic testing. In 2019, Mary and a team of Abbott scientists announced the discovery of a new subtype of HIV and made the sequence available to the global research community. This research marked the first time in 19 years that a new subtype of HIV-1 Group M had been identified.
Mary joined Abbott in 2014 and has authored or coauthored more than 40 research papers and contributed thousands of viral genomes to public databases. Mary was named one of Business Insider’s 30 under 40 Young Leaders in Biotech in 2017 and is an inducted member of Abbott’s Volwiler Society, which recognizes its most distinguished scientists and engineers.
Mary received her Ph.D. in biological and biomedical sciences from Harvard University. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Southern California.
Over the past two decades, Juan Pablo Hernández-Ortiz has focused his research on developing analytical and experimental methods to enhance our understanding of complex biological systems. With a strong academic background in polymer physics, biophysics, and complex fluids, he has pioneered molecular engineering approaches aimed at designing platforms for personalized medicine. Driven by a conviction that comprehensive genome understanding is crucial for progress in precision medicine, he has expanded his research interests into immunobiology, tropical diseases, and cancer.
Dr. Hernández-Ortiz is currently the Director of the Global Health Institute (GHI) One Health Colombia, established in 2018 as part of the Colombia/Wisconsin One-Health Consortium. One Health Colombia has since been recognized as a Center of Excellence by the Global Virus Network and plays a key role in Abbott’s Pandemic Awareness Program. GHI One Health Colombia operates an advanced 800 m² BSL-2+ lab and runs fever clinics and disease-monitoring stations across Colombia, including the Eastern Plains, Pacific Coast, Urabá region, Central Mountains, and the Amazon Basin. Current research covers SARS-CoV-2, arboviruses, influenza, blood parasites, and solid tumor cancers. The Genomics One Health Lab, based on open-access principles, offers leading local capabilities in molecular biology, pathogen discovery, immunobiology, serology, and multi-omics, with state-of-the-art sequencing platforms for everything from simple virus analysis to whole human genome sequencing.
Throughout his career, Professor Hernández-Ortiz has cultivated collaborations in Colombia and the U.S., reflected in 1,110+ publications, over 3,600 citations, an h-index of 28, and the mentorship of 20+ graduate students. His team currently includes 25 graduate students and 25 scientific staff. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he co-founded VaxThera with Professor Jorge Osorio of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This Colombian biotech company, in partnership with Grupo SURA, focuses on developing vaccines and treatments for infectious and genetic diseases, guided by the principles of “health security,” “biological accessibility,” and “pandemic awareness.”
Sunil Suhas Solomon, MBBS PhD MPH is a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA. He is also the Managing Trustee of the YR Gaitonde Medical Educational and Research Foundation in Chennai, India.
He currently co-directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Infectious Diseases in India. He completed his medical training at the Sri Ramachandra Medical University in Chennai, India and received a Master of Public Health (MPH) and a doctorate in Epidemiology (PhD) from the Johns Hopkins University, USA.
Dr. Solomon has been elected into the Phi Beta Kappa honors society for academic excellence and the Delta Omega Public Health honors society. His research is primarily focused on the epidemiology, clinical management and access to services for HIV and viral hepatitis among vulnerable populations such as people who inject drugs (PWID) and men who have sex with men (MSM). He serves as a Deputy Editor of the Journal of the International AIDS Society and an Associate Editor of Drug and Alcohol Dependence. He is also a member of the PWID and ART technical resource group of the National AIDS Control Organisation, India. His team established one of the first comprehensive clinics for the transgender community and people who inject drugs in India.
He currently serves as the co-Chair of the Substance Use Scientific Committee (SUSC) of the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN). He served as the Protocol Chair of ACTG A5360 (MINMON) a ground-breaking global trial on the simplification of HCV treatment delivery and currently serves as the Protocol Chair of HPTN 103/PURPOSE-4, the first trial of long acting antiretrovirals for PrEP among people who inject drugs. He was also awarded US $50 million PEPFAR/USAID to provide technical assistance to the National AIDS Program in India. He is also one of the only recipients of both the NIH Directors New Innovator Award (DP2) and the Pioneer Award (DP1), the Avenir and the Avant-Garde awards, from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.