2000 Richard J. Duma/NFID Annual Press Conference and Symposium on Infectious Diseases
Please Choose a Presenter
» Martin J. Blaser, M.D.
» J. Glenn Morris, Jr., M.D., MPH & TM
» Stephen M. Ostroff, M.D.
» Merle A. Sande, M.D.
» Robert A. Whitney, D.V.M.
Martin J. Blaser, M.D.
Frederick H. King Professor of Internal Medicine
and Chairman, Department of Medicine
Professor of Microbiology
New York University School of Medicine
New York, NY
Dr. Martin J. Blaser, Professor of Medicine and Microbiology is Chairman of the Department of Medicine at New York University. He also serves on the Subspecialty Board on Infectious Diseases of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and on editorial boards of seven biomedical journals, and was Councilor of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Dr. Blaser is well-known for his contributions to our understanding of bacterial infections of humans. He has published over 320 original papers, most of which concern the pathogenesis, epidemology, and molecular biology of bacterial diseases. His work has particularly focused on Campylobacter species and Helicobacter pylori. Dr. Blaser was one of the pioneers in our understanding of the role of Helicobacter pylori in ulcer disease and in gastric cancer. His 1990-1992 New England Journal of Medicine papers established the role of the organism in gastritis and gastric cancer, and elucidated the major transmission pathways for the organism. Three of the four major strain differences among H. pylori (including cagA, vacA, and iceA) originated in his laboratory. He has developed an overall model of the equilibrium relationship between H. pylori and humans based on experimental studies and mathematical analysis that explains the interactions of H. pylori with its hosts, and serves as a model for other persistent indigenous organisms in humans.
Most recently he has developed the hypothesis that H. pylori, while increasing risk for both ulcer disease and gastric cancer, decreases risk for important esophageal diseases including adenocarcinoma of the esophagus. His hypothesis is a revolutionary insight into the role of indigenous organisms and protection from disease.
Dr. Blaser has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the American Epidemiological Society. He has organized and chaired International meetings and symposia on H. pylori, the Bacteriology and Mycology Study Section of NIH, and has been a consultant to the NIH, CDC, EPA and U.S. Army. He received the Young Investigator Award from the Western Society for Clinical Investigation, the Squibb Award of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, been a Guest Investigator at Rockefeller University, Professor InvitÈ (4 times) at Institut Pasteur, and holds 16 U.S patents. He is President of the Foundation for Bacteriology, which has established the Virtual Museum of Bacteria (bacteriamuseum.org).
Return to the list of presenters.
J. Glenn Morris, Jr., M.D., MPH & TM
Professor and Chairman
Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Baltimore, MD
Dr. Morris received his BA from Rice University in Houston in 1973, and his MD degree and a master¼s degree in public health and tropical medicine from Tulane University, New Orleans, in 1977. His residency training in internal medicine was at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas and Emory University in Atlanta. He served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and subsequently received subspecialty training in infectious diseases at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He is board certified in both internal medicine and infectious diseases.
Dr. Morris joined the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1984, where he is now Professor and Chairman of the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. He has authored over 20 textbook chapters and 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals, with continuous federal grant funding since 1984. His scholarly contributions were recognized by election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1996; he is also a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He has served on three National Academy of Sciences expert committees dealing with food safety, and, from 1994-1996, worked with the Food Safety Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, on the first major revision of food safety regulations since 1906. During this time he served as Director of the Epidemiology and Emergency Response Program, FSIS, and was the first Deputy FSIS Administrator for Public Health and Science. Dr. Morris has also had a very strong interest in emerging pathogens and, in particular, in understanding factors which have led to the emergence of multi-antibiotic resistant microorganisms. From 1996-2000, he served as the head of the Division of Hospital Epidemiology at the University of Maryland, with specific responsibility for surveillance and tracking of spread of multi-resistant pathogens within the University of Maryland affiliated hospitals. He also serves as co-principle investigator on the CDC Emerging Infections Program site in the Baltimore metropolitan area.
Return to the list of presenters.
Stephen M. Ostroff, M.D.
Associate Director for Epidemiologic Sciences
National Center for Infectious Diseases
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, GA
Dr. Ostroff is the Associate Director for Epidemiologic Sciences in the National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He has worked at CDC since 1986, and has served in his current position since 1993. In 1999, he temporarily served as CDC's Deputy Director for Science and Public Health. In his current role, he is responsible for the quality of NCID's epidemiologic science and coordinates the conduct of NCID's outbreak investigations. In addition, he assists in coordinating emerging infectious disease programs, including bioterrorism, food safety, and antimicrobial resistance. In 2000, he was named coordinator of West Nile virus activities for the Department of Health and Human Services.
A native of Philadelphia, PA, Dr. Ostroff is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and completed residencies in internal medicine at the University of Colorado and preventive medicine at CDC. He completed CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) training while assigned to the Washington State Department of Health from 1986-1988. He has authored/co-authored more than 50 scientific publications and book chapters. He co-chairs the surveillance and response subcommittee of the Emerging Infections Working Group of the Council on International Science, Engineering, and Technology(CISET), NSTC, and is on the scientific advisory board of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and chairs the Disease Control Subcommittee of the Armed Forces Epidemiology Board. He is a fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America, and a member of the American Society for Microbiology, American Epidemiological Society, and International Society for Travel Medicine. He is also the Dispatch Editor of CDC's Emerging Infectious Disease Journal.
Return to the list of presenters.
Merle A. Sande, M.D.
Chairman, Department of Medicine
University of Utah School of Medicine
Salt Lake City, UT
Dr. Merle A. Sande is Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Utah and is the first holder of the Clarence M. and Ruth N. Biner Presidential Endowed Chair in Internal Medicine. Prior to taking his position with the University of Utah in 1996, Dr. Sande was Professor and Vice-Chair of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and Chief of Medical Services at San Francisco General Hospital.
From 1971-1979 Dr. Sande was a professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. In 1979 he was acting Chair of Medicine there. He became known for his research with animal models of infection as a means of bridging the gap between the test tube and the patient. His team was extraordinarily successful and the model they designed for meningitis is used all over the world to this day.
Dr. Sande's tenure in San Francisco coincided with the emergence of HIV/AIDS. By 1983, Dr. Sande together with Cliff Morrison, then assistant director of nursing, had set up the country's first AIDS inpatient ward. When hospital workers all over the country were refusing care for AIDS patients, Dr. Sande and health care professionals from the San Francisco City Health Department forged the first infection control guidelines, eventually adopted nationwide, to help allay fear and confusion. Dr. Sande is credited with the establishment of the first hospital ward in the U.S. devoted solely to the needs of HIV/AIDS patients, and his program is a model for many clinical trials which have shaped AIDS therapy. Along with his chief resident, he is credited with first describing many of the clinical manifestations of AIDS in a series of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Sande worked closely with Dianne Feinstein and formed the Mayor's Task Force on AIDS, which he then chaired. He was responsible for establishing the AIDS Clinical Research Forum, a group developed primarily to bridge the gap between activists and his own investigators. He took part in the Medical Advisory Committee for AIDS at the San Francisco Department of Health and was the founding chairman of the statewide Task Force on AIDS, which during his five-year tenure distributed nearly 100 million dollars for AIDS research in the State of California.
Dr. Sande received his medical degree from the University of Washington School of Medicine. He has received numerous commendations for his work, including honors from the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the American College of Physicians, the Infectious Disease Society of America, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease and the Association of Professors of Medicine.
Dr. Sande has published more than 210 documents of research; his reviews number close to fifty. He has contributed to 75 books with chapters, and has accommodated many with editorship of 15 textbooks. Dr. Sande's textbook with Paul Volberding, The Medical Management of AIDS, is in its sixth printing; it is recognized as the definitive treatment guide, and is the largest selling AIDS textbook in the world. For twelve years, Dr. Sande has edited The Sanford Guide.
Return to the list of presenters.
Robert A. Whitney, D.V.M.
President
EARTHSPAN
Steilacoom, WA
Dr. Whitney is former Deputy Surgeon General, United States Public Health Service. He currently is president of EARTHSPAN, a not-for-profit institute dedicated to environmental health, natural resource conservation, biodiversity and ecosystem preservation.
Dr. Whitney's public service career began as a veterinary officer in the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps from 1959-1971. He served as Director of the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps Training Program in Laboratory Animal Medicine at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland from 1965-1970. He also served one year in South Vietnam at the Rabies Diagnostic Laboratory in Da Nang. In 1971 he entered the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service with duty station at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He served in numerous positions at NIH, including Founding Director of the National Center for Research Resources.
While at NIH, he served from 1985-1989 as Chief Veterinary Officer for the U.S. Public Health Service. From 1992-1994 he served as Deputy Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service. In 1993, he was appointed Acting Surgeon General of the United States.
In 1994 he retired from federal service and became president of EARTHSPAN. EARTHSPAN uses satellite technology to track birds and other species, and to identify critical habitats and environmental conditions around the world.
He has been recognized many times for his public service, including the American Veterinary Medical Association Animal Welfare Award in 1994 and the Surgeon General's Medallion in 1993. He has received numerous medals for meritorious service to the U.S. Public Health Service. This year he was named to the Oklahoma State University Hall of Fame, and has been named a Distinguished Alumnus at The Ohio State University, where he received his master's degree in pharmacology.
He is the author of the Laboratory Primate Handbook, as well as more than 40 scientific publications. He is a past president of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine and the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science.
Dr. Whitney serves or is a consultant for numerous health-related organizations, including the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, the American Veterinary Epidemiology Society, the Scientists' Center for Animal Welfare, the Pan American Health Organization and the NASA Bion Project.
