Dr. Peter Daszak and the scientists of EcoHealth Alliance cordially invite
you and a guest to a cocktail reception & presentation
EXPLORING THE ANATOMY OF A PANDEMIC
Based on The Lancet Series published in December 2012
PRESENTERS:
Dr. William Karesh
Executive Vice President for Health and Policy, EcoHealth Alliance
Dr. W. Ian Lipkin
John Snow Professor of Epidemiology and Director, Center for Infection and Immunity Mailman School of Public Health - Professor of Pathology and Neurology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
Dr. Jonathan Epstein
Associate Vice President, EcoHealth Alliance
Date: Thursday, February 21, 2013
Time: 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
The University Club
One West 54th Street
New York City
Business attire: jacket & tie required for gentlemen
Please RSVP by February 18th to Blakely Ashley
About Peter Daszak, PhD  Dr. Peter Daszak is President of EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. based organization that conducts research and outreach programs on global health, conservation and international development. Dr. Daszak's research has been instrumental in identifying and predicting the impact of emerging diseases across the globe. His achievements include identifying the first case of a species extinction due to disease, the discovery of the disease chytridiomycosis as the cause of global amphibian declines, identification of the wildlife reservoir of SARS, identifying the causes of Nipah and Hendra virus emergence, coining the term 'pathogen pollution', and producing the first-ever global emerging disease 'hotspots' map. Dr. Daszak is a member of the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats, and served on the IOM Committee on global surveillance for emerging zoonoses, the NRC committee on the future of veterinary research, the International Standing Advisory Board of the Australian Biosecurity CRC, and he has advised the Director for Medical Preparedness Policy on the White House National Security Staff on global health issues. Dr. Daszak won the 2000 CSIRO medal for collaborative research in the discovery of amphibian chytridiomycosis and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Ecohealth. He has authored over 150 scientific papers, and his work has been the focus of extensive media coverage, ranging from popular press articles to television appearances. About William Karesh, DVM
 Dr. William Karesh is the Executive Vice President for Health and Policy at EcoHealth Alliance. He serves as the president of the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) Working Group on Wildlife Diseases and also chairs the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Wildlife Health Specialist Group, a network of wildlife and health experts around the world. Currently, Dr. Karesh is the Technical Director for the USAID Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT program, a $75 million effort focused on predicting and preventing pandemic diseases. Dr. Karesh has pioneered initiatives focusing attention and resources on solving problems raised by the interactions among wildlife, people, and their animals. International programs under his direction have covered terrain from Argentina to Zambia and include efforts in the Congo Basin to reduce the impact of diseases such as Ebola, measles, and tuberculosis on humans and endangered species such as gorillas and chimpanzees, to global surveillance systems for emerging diseases. In addition to his work in the private sector, Dr. Karesh has also worked for the USDA, DOD, DOI and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. Dr. Karesh is internationally recognized as an authority on the subject of animal and human health linkages and wildlife. He has published more than 150 scientific papers and numerous book chapters, and written for journals such as Foreign Affairs.
About W. Ian Lipkin, MD
 W. Ian Lipkin, MD is internationally recognized for the development and implementation of molecular methods for microbial surveillance and discovery. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, he obtained his MD at Rush Medical College, Medicine Residency at the University of Washington, Neurology Residency at the University of California San Francisco, and Fellowship with Michael Oldstone at The Scripps Research Institute. His contributions include the first use of purely molecular methods to identify an infectious agent; implication of West Nile virus as the cause of the encephalitis in North America in 1999; invention of MassTag PCR and the first panmicrobial microarray; first use of deep sequencing in pathogen discovery; discovery or molecular characterization of more than 500 viruses including rhinovirus C, Dandenong, and LuJo; and establishment of the largest prospective birth cohort focused on pathogenesis and biomarker discovery. He served in Beijing as an intermediary between the WHO and the Chinese government during the SARS outbreak of 2003, and co-directed SARS research efforts in China with current Minister of Health Chen Zhu. His honors include the following: Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, Japanese Human Science Foundation Visiting Professor, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons Visiting Bruenn Professor, American Society of Microbiology Foundation Lecturer, Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar in Global Infectious Disease, Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, Distinguished Lecturer of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, Fellow of the American Society for Microbiology, John Courage Professor National University of Singapore, Kinyoun Lecturer National Institutes of Health, Fellow of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Member of the Association of American Physicians.
About Jonathan Epstein, DVM  A veterinarian and epidemiologist, Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President of Conservation Medicine at EcoHealth Alliance, studies Nipah and Ebola virus, along with SARS, and other diseases that have emerged within Asia and Africa. Dr. Epstein is part of a large international collaboration that is investigating the ecology of Nipah virus in Bangladesh, where outbreaks occur in people almost every year with mortality rates reaching 100%. The focus of this research is to better understand the factors that cause this lethal virus to emerge, and to develop models to predict and prevent future outbreaks. Dr. Epstein, along with colleagues at EcoHealth Alliance, is working with a consortium of university and NGO partners under USAID's "Emerging Pandemic Threats" program, designed to establish an early warning system for zoonotic disease emergence. The program studies the diversity of pathogens in wildlife and assesses the risk of spillover into livestock and human populations in the most vulnerable countries around the world. Dr. Epstein holds adjunct faculty positions at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology; Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and Tufts School of Medicine; and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. His work has been published in several leading scientific journals including Emerging Infectious Diseases, PLoS Pathogens, Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, The Journal of Applied Ecology, and Science.
About EcoHealth Alliance Building on over 40 years of groundbreaking science, EcoHealth Alliance is a global, nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting wildlife and safeguarding human health from the emergence of disease. The organization develops ways to combat the effects of damaged ecosystems on human and wildlife health. Using environmental and health data covering the past 60 years, EcoHealth Alliance scientists created the first-ever, global disease hotspots map that identified at-risk regions, to help predict and prevent the next pandemic crisis. That work is the foundation of EcoHealth Alliance's rigorous, science-based approach, focused at the intersection of the environment, health, and capacity building. Working in the U.S. and more than 20 countries worldwide, EcoHealth Alliance's strength is founded on innovations in research, training, global partnerships, and policy initiatives. To learn more please visit www.EcoHealthAlliance.org today! |
