Gregory C. Gray, M.D.
Gregory Gray is an infectious disease epidemiologist and Professor at Duke University, with three affiliations. These are the Division of Infectious Diseases in Duke University’s School of Medicine, the Duke Global Health Institute, and the Duke Nicholas School of the Environment. He also serves as a Professor in the Program in Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Global Health Institute at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, and as a Professor of Global Health at Duke Kunshan University in China.
Gregory leads the Duke One Health Network, which involves more than thirty professionals studying a significant number of pathogens in numerous research and training projects running in multiple countries, including China, Iraq, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, the Philippines, the United States and Vietnam.
He has conducted diverse epidemiological studies of infectious diseases for twenty-five years in five continents and has authored more than three hundred peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters. Much of Gregory’s work has involved identifying risk factors for occupational diseases, particularly for respiratory virus infections. A strong supporter for the One Health approach, he has won multiple One Health research and training grants, helped to established centers of One Health (USA, Romania, China), and developed 4 graduate programs in One Health (PhD, MHS, and certificate).
Gregory has served on various expert scientific committees and boards and has won numerous professional awards. In 2019, he was elected to serve as a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations.
Marion Pepper, Ph.D.
Marion Pepper graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Biology and English from Williams College and received her Ph.D. in Immunology in 2006 from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed post-doctoral training at the University of Minnesota and joined the Department of Immunology as an Assistant Professor in 2011. She was promoted to Associate Professor 2017. Marion has held the post of Interim Chair of the University of Washington (Washington), Department of Immunology, since September 2021.
The Pepper Lab at Washington is investigating the immune memory response to SARS-CoV-2 in adults who have recovered from mild COVID-19. This immune memory may help the body fight off the virus in the future. The lab is also investigating how previously SARS-CoV2 infected adults respond to COVID-19 vaccines compared to adults who were not previously
infected.
George R. Siber, M.D.
George Siber is an internationally recognized vaccine expert with forty years of experience in developing numerous innovative vaccines.
From 1975 to 1996, George served on the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University as Assistant and Associate Professor of Medicine based at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Concurrently, from 1982 to 1996, he was Director of the Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories. Under his leadership, the laboratory developed specific immune globulins to CMV (Cytogam) and to RSV (Respigam) the precursor product to Synagis.
From 1996 to 2007, George was Executive Vice-President and Chief Scientific Officer of Wyeth Vaccines Research, overseeing the development, approval, and marketing of six innovative childhood vaccines including Prevenar, the first pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, Meningitec, the first Meningococcal C conjugate vaccine, Rotashield, the first rotavirus vaccine and FluMist, the first live nasal influenza vaccine.
George currently serves on the Board of Directors of Genocea and on the Scientific Advisory Boards of CureVac, ILiAD, Valneva, Vaxess, AdVaccine, CanSino, Vaxxinity and Clover. He has received multiple awards including the 2016 Albert Sabin Gold Medal in vaccinology.
Robert Belshe, M.D.
Robert Belshe has directed the NIH-funded Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit (VTEU) at St. Louis University for the past three decades. His clinical and laboratory research interests include the development of live attenuated respiratory virus vaccines.
Recent clinical projects include the evaluation of novel vaccines for influenza, including the live attenuated influenza vaccine available for children and adults aged 2-49. Belshe coordinated 50 other academic centers to evaluate a subunit vaccine for HSV2 in women ages 18-30. More than 8,300 women participated in the trial.
Past successes include evaluating haemophilus conjugate vaccines in infants and pneumococcal vaccines in infants and adults, demonstrating that smallpox vaccine dilutions could extend the national vaccine reserve by tenfold, evaluating the efficacy of acellular pertussis vaccines in college students, and developing a live attenuated vaccine as an improved vaccine for influenza.
Collaborations between the Vaccine Center and the Saint Louis University Liver Center led to the first-in-human studies of a prophylactic vaccine for hepatitis C. The Division of Infectious Diseases and VTEU have significant collaborations beyond the University, including the Midwest Research Center for Excellence for Biodefense Studies.
Stanley A. Plotkin, M.D.
Stanley Plotkin is Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University. Until 1991, he was Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, Professor of Virology at the Wistar Institute, and at the same time, Director of Infectious Diseases and Senior Physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
In 1991, Stanley left the university to join the vaccine manufacturer, Pasteur-Mérieux-Connaught, where for seven years he was the Medical and Scientific Director, based at Marnes-la-Coquette, now known as Sanofi Pasteur.
He has developed several pediatric vaccines including the rubella vaccine , which is now in standard use throughout the world, and a recently licensed pentavalent rotavirus vaccine. Stanley has also been involved in other vaccine development programs, including anthrax, oral polio, rabies, varicella, and cytomegalovirus.
Stanley’s bibliography includes nearly eight hundred articles, and he has edited several books including the standard textbook on vaccines, now in its 7th edition. He is a consultant to vaccine manufacturers, biotechnology companies, and non-profit research organizations as principal of Vaxconsult, LLC.
He attended New York University, where he received a B.A. degree, and then the State University of New York Medical School in Brooklyn, where he received an M.D. degree in 1956.
Stefan Gravenstein, M.D.
Stefan Gravenstein is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Health Services Policy and Practice at Brown University’s Schools of Medicine and Public Health. He also serves as the Director of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
Stefan has a long-standing interest in immunity, aging and vaccines, especially in the context of the long-term care settings, topics represented in the majority of his publications.
Harry Greenberg, M.D.
Harry Greenberg is the Joseph D. Grant Professor in the School of Medicine and Associate Dean for Research at Stanford University. He was the lead inventor of the first-generation vaccine for rotavirus, a severe diarrheal disease that kills between 300,000 and 400,000 children each year in the developing world.
Harry’s current interests are in pathogenic viruses that infect the GI tract, liver, and respiratory tract. His primary focus is on molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis, viral determinants of protective immunity, the molecular basis of host range, virulence and tissue tropism, vaccine development, viral immunology, and epidemiology with specific emphasis on the role of enteric viruses in less developed countries.
He earned his BA from Dartmouth College and MD from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons.
