Appendix A
Committee Biographies
Enriqueta Bond, Ph.D., M.A. (Co-Chair), served as the president of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and was the executive officer of the Institute of Medicine. Currently she is a founding partner in QE Philanthropic Advisors that provides consulting services to nonprofits on organizational structure and function. Dr. Bond’s degrees were in molecular biology and genetics; however, the bulk of her career has been addressing science and health policy and the role of philanthropy in support of biomedical research. She received her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in 1961, her M.A. from the University of Virginia in 1963, and her Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics from Georgetown University in 1969. Dr. Bond chaired the Board on African Science Academy and has served on a number of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committees, most recently chairing studies on temporomandibular disorders and on reopening K–12 schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is a past member of the National Academies’ Report Review Committee and has served on numerous government advisory groups including for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. She is a recipient of numerous honors including the 2008 Order of the Long Leaf Pine award, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and alumna of the year at Wellesley College.
Kanta Subbarao, M.B.B.S., M.P.H. (Co-Chair), was appointed the director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in 2016. Prior to her arrival in Melbourne, she was the chief of the Emerging Respiratory Viruses Section of the Labo-
ratory of Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States from 2002 to 2016, and the chief of the Molecular Genetics Section of the Influenza Branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1997 to 2002. Ms. Kanta is a virologist and a physician with specialty training in pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases. She received her M.B.B.S. from Christian Medical College, Vellore, in India; completed training in pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases in the United States, and earned an M.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. She received postdoctoral training in virology and vaccine development in the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases at NIAID. Over the years, her research has focused on newly emerging viral diseases of global importance including seasonal and pandemic influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome and now, SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Her current research efforts are directed at understanding the biology and immune responses to influenza viruses and vaccines and SARS-CoV-2. She is an internationally recognized leader in the field of emerging respiratory viruses. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America and is a member of the American Society of Microbiology, the American Society for Virology, and the Australasian Virology Society. In her current position as the director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, she advises WHO on viruses to be included in annual seasonal influenza vaccines.
Maria Elena Bottazzi, Ph.D., is the associate dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, a professor of pediatrics and the co-director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. She is an internationally recognized vaccine scientist and global health advocate with more than two decades of contributions in science, biotechnology, and vaccine development tackling neglected and emerging infectious diseases. As a global thought leader she has received national and international highly regarded awards, has more than 180 scientific papers, and participated in more than 250 conferences worldwide. In 2020, Forbes selected her as one of 100 Most Powerful Women in Central America. Dr. Bottazzi is a member of the National Academy of Science of Honduras and an Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine Scholar of the National Academy of Medicine in the United States. Currently she serves as the co-chair of the Vaccines and Therapeutics Taskforce of the Lancet Commission on COVID-19. Dr. Bottazzi obtained her bachelor’s degree in microbiology and clinical chemistry from the National Autonomous University of Honduras and a doctorate in molecular immunology and experimental pathology from the University of Florida.
Her postdoctoral training in cellular biology was completed at the University of Miami and the University of Pennsylvania.
Rebecca J. Cox, Ph.D., is a professor of medical virology and the head of the Influenza Centre at the University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hospital, Norway, leading a team of 15 scientists. She has more than 25 years of experience of influenza work particularly in development and evaluation of influenza vaccines. She has serves as an advisor to the World Health Organization SAGE Immunization Working Group on Influenza and the European Medicines Agency. She is the deputy chair of influenza and other respiratory viruses and the senior editor for the journal Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses and the associate editor of the journals Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics and Vaccines. Her research focuses on epidemics and pandemics with particular focus on human immune responses after infection and vaccination.
Annette Fox, Ph.D., is an immunologist with specialist expertise and knowledge in research on influenza, including laboratory, epidemiological, and clinical studies. She is a senior research scientist with the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza and holds honorary senior fellow appointments at the University of Melbourne (Australia). Dr. Fox studied fundamental aspects of gamma delta T cells (receptor use and biology) for her Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne. This was followed by a postdoc at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (Melbourne, Australia) where she initiated novel research on innate immune recognition of transplants, and 3 years with the Medical Research Council in the Gambia investigating immunity against tuberculosis. In 2008, she joined the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam, and undertook pioneering research on influenza and dengue immunity, pathogenesis, and transmission. Dr. Fox returned to Australia in 2014, and has established a research platform to understand how serological responses to influenza are influenced by prior exposures and may be enhanced to improve vaccine outcomes. Her research platform revolves around longitudinal community and hospital-based cohorts that investigate influenza vaccinations and infections. Her lab has developed a series of tools to dissect antibody and B cell responses to influenza in these cohorts, and to model interactions with exposure history. High throughput serology and computational analysis are combined with virus reverse engineering to quantify the influenza strain coverage of antibodies induced. B cells are analyzed using influenza-protein probes in 20+ color flow cytometry, as well as B cell receptor sequencing and recombinant mAb generation. Her work has helped to establish the need for extended serological analysis of influenza vaccine responses, and for greater understanding of how prior influenza exposures affect vaccine responses.
Florian Krammer, Ph.D., is a professor of vaccinology in the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Krammer has published more than 250 papers and is a peer reviewer for more than 30 journals. He has focused on the development of broadly neutralizing anti-hemagglutinin stalk antibodies and the design of a universal influenza virus vaccine. The Krammer laboratory, which is also part of the National Institutes of Health–funded Centers for Excellence in Influenza Research and Surveillance, focuses on understanding broadly reactive immune responses against the surface glycoproteins of RNA viruses such as influenza with the goal to develop better vaccines and novel therapeutics. Professor Krammer received his advanced training in biotechnology and applied virology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (Mentor: Dr. Reingard Grabherr), where he gained extensive experience with expression and purification of recombinant (glyco-) proteins and influenza virus-like particles. He established various expression systems for these proteins using insect cells/baculovirus, mammalian cells, bacteria, yeast, and plants. Furthermore, he worked on a novel influenza virus rescue system based on baculovirus transduction of mammalian cells and a novel bioassay to measure inhibition of the influenza virus polymerase complex by cap-snatching inhibitors. He graduated from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, in 2010.
Grace M. Lee, M.D., M.P.H., is a professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She has earned distinction through her research and policy leadership to avert harm from infectious diseases. Her body of work has had national impact on public health policy for vaccines and hospital-acquired infections. Her talent and skills in large-scale informatics were key to the development of near real-time safety surveillance for H1N1 vaccine via the nation’s largest active vaccine monitoring networks sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S. CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Lee’s seminal research in hospital-acquired infections has generated a number of high-impact findings. Dr. Lee’s accomplishments and ability to integrate the ideas of experts from multiple disciplines have led to invitations to multiple leadership roles. These include election to the boards of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society; a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice (2013–2019); and the current chair of U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the nation’s leading policy-making group for vaccines. She is currently a member of the ACIP COVID-19 vaccines workgroup, the chair of the COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Technical (VaST) workgroup, and a member
of the Western States Scientific Safety Review Committee. VaST reviews safety data from all federal safety surveillance systems on a weekly basis for COVID-19 vaccines and supports the ACIP decision making regarding the continued use of COVID-19 vaccines for the United States.
John C. Martin, Ph.D., M.B.A., was the former executive chair and the chief executive officer of Gilead Sciences. Dr. Martin previously served as Gilead’s vice president for research and development and chair. He previously worked at Syntax Corporation and was the director of antiviral chemistry at Bristol Myers Squibb. While working at Gilead Sciences his focus was on anti-HIV medications and AIDS prevention through pre-exposure prophylaxis. He developed the first single tablet treatment for HIV and expanded access to HIV and hepatitis C treatments in developing countries, earning him the Lifetime Achievement Award for Public Service and the Biotechnology Heritage Award.
Joshua M. Sharfstein, M.D., is the vice dean for public health practice and community engagement and a professor of the practice in health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is also the director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative. Previously, Dr. Sharfstein served as the secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, as the principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and as the health commissioner of Baltimore City. In these positions, he pursued creative solutions to long-standing challenges, including drug overdose deaths, infant mortality, unsafe consumer products, and school failure. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Milagritos D. Tapia, M.D. Dr. Tapia’s research focuses primarily on the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable diseases in Mali and the development of vaccines to address these diseases. In conjunction with the team at CVD-Mali (Centre pour le Developpement des Vaccins–Mali), she has conducted and participated in the following vaccine development activities: (1) a pivotal vaccine trial that demonstrated the efficacy of live, oral, pentavalent rotavirus vaccine (Rotateq) in Africa; (2) a large trial of trivalent influenza vaccine, administered to pregnant Malian women, demonstrated its efficacy in the prevention of influenza in the infants up to 6 months of age; and (3) a first trial in humans of a candidate vaccine against Ebolavirus and phase II trials of a candidate vaccine against Ebolavirus in Malian adults and children. Dr. Tapia is the principal investigator in clinical research relating to meningococcal vaccine that is supported by Walvax Technology Ltd.
This page intentionally left blank.
