Agenda & Speakers

Lawrence Stanberry, MD, PhD is Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Dean for International Programs and Director of the Programs in Global Health. Dr. Stanberry received his  MD (James Scholar) and PhD (Pharmacology) degrees from the University of Illinois in Chicago. His postgraduate medical training was in Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases and Virology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He spent a sabbatical year at SmithKline Beecham Biologicals, Rixensart, Belgium working on the development of therapeutic vaccine for persistent viral infections and cancer. From 2008 to 2018 he was the Reuben S. Carpentier Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at VP&S. From 2000 to 2008, he was the John Sealy Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Pediatrics and Director of the Sealy Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Prior to joining the faculty in Galveston, he was the Albert B. Sabin Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.   

Dr. Stanberry is an authority on vaccine development and viral diseases. He has served on numerous advisory and review panels including serving as the chair of the Vaccine Study Section and the Pediatrics Review Panel at the National Institutes of Health. He has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, numerous vaccine, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. His areas of research include the development of antiviral drugs, topical microbicides, prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines and basic studies of the pathogenesis and immunobiology of herpes simplex virus. His vaccine research has ranged from preclinical animal model studies through phase 3 multinational clinical trials. He has participated in four first-in-human vaccine trials. His laboratory provided the first experimental evidence to support the concept of vaccine immunotherapy for the treatment of persistent viral infections. Dr. Stanberry was one of the lead researchers on the GlaxoSmithKline herpes simplex virus vaccine trials. These trials produced the first scientific evidence that a vaccine could protect humans against genital herpes infection. An unexpected finding of these trials was that the vaccine was effective only in women. This was the first demonstration of gender-specific vaccine protection. Dr. Stanberry has authored over 200 scientific articles and chapters. He is the author of a book for the general public entitled, “Understanding Herpes” University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi (1st edition 1998, 2nd edition 2006). He is the editor or co-editor of 5 textbooks including: “Genital and Neonatal Herpes” John Wiley and Sons, Ltd, London (1996), “Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Vaccines, Prevention, and Control” Academic Press, Ltd., London (1st edition 2000, 2nd edition 2012), “Vaccines for Biodefense and Emerging and Neglected Diseases, London, Elsevier (2009). “Understanding Modern Vaccines” Elsevier (2011) and “Viral Infections of Humans: Epidemiology and Control,” (5th edition 2014, 6th edition anticipated 2020).

Jeremy Farrar is the director of the Wellcome Trust – the world’s second largest independent charitable foundation that exists to improve human health through research. Jeremy is a clinician scientist who before joining Wellcome in 2013 was, for eighteen years, Director of the Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam, where his research interests were in global health with a focus on emerging infectious diseases. He was named 12th in the Fortune list of 50 World’s Greatest Leaders in 2015 and was awarded the Memorial Medal and Ho Chi Minh City Medal from the Government of Vietnam. In 2018 he was recognised as the President Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian of the Year. Jeremy was knighted in the Queen’s 2019 New Year Honours for services to global health and awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon by the Government of Japan in recognition of contribution to global health. He was named in the annual Politico Class of 2022 ranking of the most influential people in Europe.  He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences UK, National Academies USA and a Fellow of The Royal Society.

Andrew Pekosz received his BS in Biochemistry from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pekosz is a Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and his laboratory studies the basic biology of influenza, coronaviruses and other emerging and zoonotic virus infections. Dr. Pekosz is the co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Excellence in Influenza Research and Response (JH-CEIRR) and Director of the Center for Emerging Viral Infectious Diseases (CEVID). He has authored more than 100 scientific papers, is on the editorial board for several journals and has served on several National Institute of Health scientific and policy review boards focused on biosafety and biocontainment. He has been interviewed on the topics of COVID-19, influenza, biosafety, emerging infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness by a number of news agencies including National Public Radio, the Associated Press (AP), the Baltimore Sun, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Cable News Network (CNN), CSPAN, British Broadcasting Company (BBC), Bloomberg Television, Al Jazeera, France24, Voice of America, the Discovery Channel and numerous local radio and television stations.

Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, is the 19th Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the ninth Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. She is an influential scholar whose pioneering research has helped advance the national and global response to HIV/AIDS. Dr. Walensky is also a well-respected expert on the value of testing and treatment of deadly viruses.

Dr. Walensky served as Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital from 2017-2020 and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School from 2012-2020. She served on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic and conducted research on vaccine delivery and strategies to reach underserved communities.

Dr. Walensky is recognized internationally for her work to improve HIV screening and care in South Africa and nationally recognized for motivating health policy and informing clinical trial design and evaluation in a variety of settings.

She is a past Chair of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council at the National Institutes of Health, Chair-elect of the HIV Medical Association, and previously served as an advisor to both the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.

Originally from Maryland, Dr. Walensky received her Bachelor of Arts from Washington University in St. Louis, her Doctor of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and her Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Philip LaRussa is a pediatric infectious disease specialist with four decades of experience in clinical and epidemiological infectious diseases research in local and global settings. He received an M.D. degree from the Università degli Studì in Bologna, Italy in 1978, completed residency training in Pediatrics (1978-1981), and a fellowship training in pediatric infectious diseases (1981-1983) at New York University-Bellevue Hospital Medical Center, New York. He was an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases, in New York from 1983-1986. From 2000-2019, he was Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University School of Medicine, and since 2019, he is Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at the same institution.

His research interests include the pathogenesis, immune response, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of varicella zoster virus infections in children. He developed the first PCR assay to distinguish varicella vaccine virus from wild-type strain, which allowed the accurate differentiation of adverse events due to the vaccine from complications of wild-type infection, and described the effectiveness of varicella vaccine in healthy and immunocompromised hosts. He also described important co-factors influencing the perinatal transmission of HIV and outcomes of perinatally infected infants. He was the principal investigator for the Women and Infants Transmission Study (WITS IV: 2001-2007), and of the NIH-funded International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent Clinical Trials site at Columbia University Medical Center and director of its on-site retrovirus study laboratory from 2006-2013. Since 2001, his research has focused on immunization safety issues, and has been the Principal Investigator for the CDC-funded Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Center at Columbia University Medical Center. During the last ten years he has also focused on capacity assessment, and capacity building research projects in sub-Saharan Africa, and has recently completed a study of capacity in 24 hospitals that care for children in sub-Saharan Africa.

He has been a member of numerous national and international advisory committees including the Brighton Collaboration Working Group for development of case definitions for smallpox vaccine associated adverse events (2003-2005), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Subcommittee on varicella vaccination (2004-2006), the F.D.A. Advisory Committee on Vaccines & Related Biological Products (2004 – 2008), Chair of the NIH NIAID Influenza Research Collaboration (NIRC) Combination Therapy Focus Group (2009 – 2010), Member, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, National Vaccine Advisory Committee [NVAC] (2011 – 2015), Co-chair, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) Global Immunization Working Group (2012-2014), Member, W.H.O. Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization Working Group on Varicella & Zoster vaccines (2012 – 2014), and Member, F.D.A., Pediatric Advisory Committee (2012 – 2016). He is the author of 164 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and 28 chapters in textbooks.

Dr. Tom Frieden is a physician trained in internal medicine, infectious diseases, public health, and epidemiology. He is former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and former commissioner of the New York City Health Department. Dr. Frieden is currently President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of the global health organization Vital Strategies.

Dr. Frieden began his public health career in New York City confronting the largest outbreak of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis to occur in the US. He was then assigned to India, on loan from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he helped scale up a program for effective tuberculosis diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. Asked to return to New York City to become Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Health Commissioner, he directed efforts to reduce smoking and other leading causes of death that increased life expectancy by 3 years. As Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Frieden oversaw the work that helped end the 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic. He now leads Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of the global health organization Vital Strategies, that works with countries to prevent 100 million deaths and to make the world safer from epidemics. During the Covid pandemic, Dr. Frieden has overseen an expansion of Resolve to Save Lives activities including policy and program innovations in the United States, counsel to multilateral institutions, and support for rapid response, health care worker safety, and data-driven decision-making in more than 20 countries.

Dr. Frieden is also Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Salmon’s primary research and practice interest is optimizing the prevention of childhood infectious diseases through the use of vaccines. He is broadly trained in vaccinology, with an emphasis in epidemiology, behavioral epidemiology, and health policy. Dr. Salmon’s focus has been on post-licensure vaccine safety, determining the individual and community risks of vaccine refusal, understanding factors that impact vaccine acceptance, evaluating and improving state laws providing exemptions to school immunization requirements, developing systems and science in vaccine safety, and effective vaccine risk communication. Dr. Salmon has considerable experience developing surveillance systems, using surveillance data for epidemiological studies, and measuring immunization coverage through a variety of approaches. Dr. Salmon has worked with state and federal and global public health authorities to strengthen immunization programs and pandemic planning.

Marc Grodman, MD, is the co-Founder and CEO of Genosity Inc, a life science biotechnology company that provides novel software, technical and laboratory solutions to enable its strategic partners to realize the value of precision medicine. He previously founded BioReference Laboratories in 1986 which became the third largest commercial laboratory in US with annual revenues approaching $1B, and served for almost 30 years as its CEO (BRLI-Nasdaq-NMS). He created specialty business units, GenPath and GenPath Oncology, focusing on Women’s Health and Oncology respectively. Grodman acquired GeneDx in 2005 and turned it and other sequencing services at BioReference to almost $200M in revenue across multiple clinical areas while establishing GeneDx as world-leader in clinical genomic testing for rare and ultra-rare disorders. BioReference was also the first clinical lab to offer Next-Gen Sequencing based tests. As Chair, Vice Chair and Board Member of the American Clinical Laboratory Association, Grodman is leading efforts to address issues such as the challenging reimbursement environment, FDA and CMS regulations, guidelines for testing, competitive bidding, PAMA, patient copay and associated changes with regard to passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Grodman also served as Board Member and Chair of Patient Safety and Quality Task Force of the Health Care Leadership Council. A member of the CUIMC Board of Advisors, Dr. Grodman has been on staff at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons since 1983, made teaching rounds for over 25 years, and has created and endowed new programs in alternative career tracks for medical students. 

Susan L. Rosenthal, PhD, ABPP has more than 30 years of experience as a pediatric psychologist. She is a Tenured Professor of Medical Psychology (in Pediatrics and Psychiatry) and Vice Chair of Faculty Development within the Department of Pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, completed her internship at the University of Maryland and her post-doctoral training at the Yale Child Study Center. Previous academic appointments were at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.   

Dr. Rosenthal’s clinical research has focused on the promotion of sexual health and vaccine acceptability. She uses both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and has had extramural funding from the National Institutes of Health and other organizations. Dr. Rosenthal also has presented and published on the development of leadership skills, the issues in mentoring in diverse relationships, and the use of faculty reviews to promote the growth of the faculty and the department. She has served as a consultant on adolescent health to industry and groups such as the World Health Organization, and has consulted on faculty development to other academic institutions and organizations. Her scholarly work has resulted in over 200 publications.   

Dr. Rosenthal has held leadership positions in the American Psychological Association, Society of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Society of Adolescent Medicine, and North American Society of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. Dr. Rosenthal was selected for the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program (2005-2006) and the Society for Adolescent Medicine Iris F. Litt Visiting Professorship in Adolescent Health Research (2006). In 2021, Dr. Rosenthal won the Bud Orgel Award for Distinguished Achievement in Research from the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Care Centers. 

Tariro Makadzange is CEO and Founder of Charles River Medical Group an African research organization that conducts world class clinical and biomedical research from Phase 1-4, implementation science and real world evidence research that is relevant to Africa. 

She earned a BA at Smith College, an MD at Harvard Medical School and a D.Phil from Oxford University. Dr. Makadzange trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Washington and Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital where she later joined the faculty. Her research has focused on HIV immunology, clinical trials and implementation science. She has been engaged in training and mentoring HIV clinicians and researchers and co-established one of the largest HIV treatment programs in Zimbabwe. She has worked in industry and academia in early and late phase clinical trials, and vaccine development.