Virology and Diseases Control

Ishwar Gilada: A medical doctor, specialized in Skin & STDs with special training in HIV management, Managing Director and Consultant in HIV/AIDS at Unison Medicare& Research Centre-India’s first private sector comprehensive HIV Care clinic; President of AIDS Society of India (a professional organization of physicians in HIV care); Secretary General of Peoples Health Org. (India). He was Secretary General of ASI from 2005-2011 and the Jt. Sec. of National AIDS Committee, Govt of India (1995-97). He was the first to raise alarm against AIDS in 1985, is known for bringing India on AIDS control map, had started India’s first AIDS Clinic-1986 and has expertise in HIV care in resource-poor settings. He had trained several doctors, nurses and social workers; he was Editor-Publisher of AIDS ASIA from 1993 to 2008. He initiated, managed, supervised, evaluated over 40 HIV/AIDS projects in India, addressed over 3700 public meetings and training programs in India and abroad, has 235 scientific papers at conferences, written chapters in books on AIDS/STDs. He was consultant for American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR), World Vision, USAID; has more than 65 awards to his credit including the "Outstanding Young Person of the World" –Glasgow in 1995 and Annemarie Madison Award-Germany in 1999 in Munich, Germany where he was termed as ‘the Indian Machinegun against AIDS’.

Specialized in Skin & STDs with special training in HIV management

Dr. Guirakhoo joined GeoVax as Senior Vice President R&D in October 2015. Dr. Guirakhoo was named one of the ‘50 Most Influential People in Vaccines’ in Vaccine Nation’s 2014 list. His previous assignment was Chief Technology Officer at Vaxess Technologies, a Cambridge, MA, based biotechnology company researching thermostabilization of vaccines and biologics using silk fibroin protein. Prior to this, he served as Chief Scientific Officer at Hookipa Biotech in Vienna, Austria, developing vaccines against Cytomegalovirus and cancers based on a novel replication deficient viral vector platform. Prior to that, Dr. Guirakhoo held the position of Executive Director of External R&D at Sanofi Pasteur from 2007-20012. Before joining Sanofi Pasteur in 2007, Dr. Guirakhoo was Head of Virology Research at Acambis for 15 years. During this time, he co-invented the ChimeriVax TM -technology platform in association with St. Louis University. This platform utilizes the YF 17D vaccine virus as a vector to develop chimeric live viruses. The ChimeriVaxTM vector platform was successfully used in the development of innovative vaccines such as: a) a single dose vaccine against Japanese encephalitis (IMOJEV™), marketed in Asian countries by Sanofi, b) a single dose veterinary vaccine for the prevention of West Nile encephalitis (PREVNILE™), marketed by Merck Animal Health, and c) DENGVAXIA®, the world’s first dengue vaccine approved in Mexico and Brazil in December 2015 and marketed by Sanofi. This tetravalent vaccine represents a historic milestone for half of the world population who lives at risk of dengue. Dr. Guirakhoo has over 30 years of experience in developing vaccines against infectious diseases. Dr. Guirakhoo holds a BSc in Biology, a MSc in genetics, and a PhD in Virology from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, and was awarded a National Research Council post-doctoral fellowship at the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, CO, from 1990-1992.

Catherine Mullié obtained a PhD in Microbiology and a PharmD at the University of Lille, France, in 1999. After a post-doc year at the Faculté de Medicine in Amiens (Laboratoire d’Immunologie, INSERM-EMI 0351), she was appointed as assistant professor at the Faculté de Pharmacie in Amiens in 2000 and joined the LG-2A (Laboratoire de Glycochimie des Antimicrobiens et des Agroressources, UMR 7378 CNRS) in 2008. She has been a member of the French Society for Microbiology since 2000. Her research is focused on the development of new antimicrobial and antimalarial drugs, with a special interest in efflux-mediated antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii. She currently heads the French part of a bilateral project funded by France and Algeria (Partenariat Hubert Curien Tassili) on this topic.

development of new antimicrobial and antimalarial drugs, with a special interest in efflux-mediated antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii

Professor Dr. Andy I.M. Hoepelman (26-03-1955) is Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases in the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands. Until 2016 he was also the head of the Department of Internal medicine. Since August 1st 1998, he is Professor in Medicine. Dr. Hoepelman received his medical training from the University of Utrecht, receiving his Doctorate in 1978 and his MD degree in 1980. He completed two internships at the University in 1980 and 1985 to earn his board certification as a specialist in Internal Medicine. He received his PhD in 1989. In 1991/1992 he worked at the Rockefeller University, New York (Laboratory Prof. E. Tuomanen) and at the Memorial-Sloan Kettering (Department of Infectious Diseases, Prof.dr. D. Armstrong). In 1993, he was board certified as a specialist in Infectious Diseases. He also heads the training programme in Infectious Disease for internal medicine specialists at the University Hospital Utrecht. He is author/co-author of more than 400 published articles and is a member of several professional associations. His research interests are pathogenesis and treatment of HIV and viral hepatitis. He won a bronze medal in waterpolo at the Montreal Olympics

pathogenesis, treatment of HIV and viral hepatitis

Ali Karami is Molecular biologist, Medical Biotechnologist and expert in Genetic Engineering working on Molecular detection of infectious diseases, cloning, expression and purification and characterization of recombinant proteins for medical applications. I also have been working for long time on Recombinant vaccines, DNA vaccines, Bioinformatics, microarray and other eras of molecular Biotechnology.

Biotechnology, Genetics, Molecular ,Molecular Biology, Recombinant DNA

Refat Sadeq, Prof. and Head of Medical Microbiology and Immunology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Port said University, Egypt. He has been on microbiology field over 40 years. He has started and graduated in Zagazig Faculty of Medicine for M.Sc. and Ph.D. Then started to research articles reaching more than 80 articles, many of which have been published in international scientific journals, and he has reviewed over 150 articles on different journal sites. He is a Featured Author, for books in Medical Microbiology and Immunology for both medical students and nurses. Work from 2008-2011 as Head of Microbiology Department, Faculty of Medicine- Zagazig University. Also work as member of Egyptian scientific committee for graduation of Professor and assistant Professor in Microbiology in Egypt and some Arabic countries. He signed as Board editor of EC Microbiology Journal and Journal of Human Virology and Retrovirology. Since Oct 2014 he pointed as a Head of Microbiology and Immunology department, Faculty of Medicine, Port said University. He is very goal-oriented, assisted in building many units in his department but the favorite one was that of Virology and Molecular biology. He loves how to help junior doctors in his department to solve their scientific problems. His advice to new contributors is to take your time to get to know all the tools and to invest your energy and be sure that success will happened.

Virology and Molecular biology.

Professor Janak Kishore is Chief of Serology and Molecular Virology in the department of Microbiology, Sanjay Gandhi Post-graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, India. He was Associate Editor Indian Journal of Virology, member National Academy Medical Sciences, American societies and Fellow of JICA, Japan. His passion is on healing and minimising human sufferings; on unveiling emerging viral infections and finding aetiologies in viral epidemics and in investigating undiagnosed/missed clinical infections so that appropriate treatment is given and life is saved. Dr. Kishore taught for over 30 yrs with pioneer work on parvovirus B19, developed in-house molecular techniques and published three novel clinical associations besides finding novel oncolytic property of B19. He also worked on cytomegalovirus, enteroviral haemorrhagic conjunctivitis, rubella. Dr Kishore published over 50 papers, served as reviewer for reputed journals, organized conferences, Chaired sessions and frequently invited to speak at international conferences.

Emerging viral infections,Viral epidemics and Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Dr Ashok Kapse is consulting Pediatrician practicing in the city of Surat in the Gujrat state of India, besides owning a private pediatric hospital he is also head of the pediatric department at a prestigious Mahavir super specialty hospital. He has special interest and skill in infectious diseases. Working along with CDC Atlanta he evolved simple clinical approach for diagnosis and management of Dengue illnesses particularly in resource limited situations. Recipient of many oration awards he is a popular and sought after speaker, he has delivered hundreds of lectures on Dengue, Malaria, Typhoid and antibiotic uses across the India. He has published more than 10 articles in reputed national & international journals also has contributed chapters in prestigious books.

Dengue, Malaria, Typhoid and Antibiotics

Professor Dr. Reza Nejat (1963) is Chief of Khatam-ol-Anbia Hospital, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, 1992-1994, Taibad City, Khorasan Province, Iran. Emergency Dept of Tehranpars General Hospital 1994-2009. Emergency Dept of Iranmehr General Hospital 1997-2000. Chief of Imam Khomeini Firuzkuh Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, 2006-2007, Firuzkuh, Tehran Province, Iran. Directing Manager of Biotourism, Consultant to Deputy of Therapeutics, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, 2007 to March, 2008. Member of managerial board of the committee of Health Tourism, Consultant to The Chancellor of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Health Tourism, March 2008-September 2008. Staff of Open Heart Surgery ICU of Day General Hospital, Tehran, Iran, June 2008-September 2009. Staff of ICU of Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, August 2008-March 2011. Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology Dept. at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, March 2011 onward. Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology Dept., ICU at Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, March 2011-April 2011. Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology Dept. at 15th Khordad Hospital, OR of plastic and reconstruction surgery, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, April 2011-April 2012. Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology Dept. at Taleghani Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, April 2012-January 2013. Critical Care fellowship programme at Sina Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, January 2013-July 2014. Assistant Professor, Fellowship of Critical Care Medicine (FCCM), ICU, Taleghani Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, July 2014-May 2015. Chief of CCM Dept., Bazarganan Hospital, Feb 2016- till now

Echocardiography, acute heart failure, stress response, sepsis and IVIG.

Professor David Ussery was born and raised in Springdale, Arkansas. He has been working with bioinformatic analysis of bacterial genomes since the first sequence was published in 1995. His group has published more than 150 papers since 2000, including two papers that have been cited more than a thousand times. He has been a co-applicant on grants funded totaling more than $30 million, since 2010. His popular course on Comparative Microbial Genomics, taught at The Technical University of Denmark from 1997 - 2013, is currently running for the 19th year; one-week workshops based on this course have been held in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. DU has collaborative projects with groups in the UK, Norway, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, and Spain as well as in the U.S. Prior to joining UAMS, Dr. Ussery was the Comparative Genomics Group lead at Oak Ridge National Labs, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (2013-2016). He led the Comparative Microbial Genomics group at The Technical University of Denmark from 1997 – 2013, where he has successfully supervised more than 20 Ph.D. students in bioinformatics. Dr. Ussery received a doctorate in Molecular Biology in1993 from The University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and did a post-doctoral fellowship at Oxford University (1992-1996). He earned his master’s degree in biophysical chemistry at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from William Jewell College (Liberty, Missouri) in 1982, and graduated from Springdale High School (Springdale, Arkansas) in 1978.

Bacterial genomics, Sequencing, Bioinformatics, Proteomics.