Join us for the annual CCIV symposium, where internal and external speakers will share the latest research on infectious diseases, microbial pathogens, immune responses, and the development of new vaccines and therapeutics.
Click here for full official program
About Keynote Speakers:
Paul Offit, MD
Paul A. Offit, MD, is Director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Offit is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of virology and immunology, and was a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a member of the Food and Drug Administration Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, and a founding advisory board member of the Autism Science Foundation and the Foundation for Vaccine Research, a member of the Institute of Medicine and co-editor of the foremost vaccine text, Vaccines.
He is a recipient of many awards including the J. Edmund Bradley Prize for Excellence in Pediatrics from the University of Maryland Medical School, the Young Investigator Award in Vaccine Development from the Infectious Disease Society of America, a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health, and the Sabin Vaccine Institute Gold Medal.
Dr. Offit has published more than 160 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety. He is also the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq, recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC. For this achievement, Dr. Offit received the Luigi Mastroianni and William Osler Awards from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the Charles Mérieux Award from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, and he was honored by Bill and Melinda Gates during the launch of their Foundation’s Living Proof Project for global health.
In 2009, Dr. Offit received the President’s Certificate for Outstanding Service from the American Academy of Pediatrics. In 2011, he received the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Biologics Industry Organization (BIO), the David E. Rogers Award from the American Association of Medical Colleges, the Odyssey Award from the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, and he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2012, Dr. Offit received the Distinguished Medical Achievement Award from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Drexel Medicine Prize in Translational Medicine from the Drexel University College of Medicine. In 2013, he received the Maxwell Finland award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, the Distinguished Alumnus award from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and the Innovators in Health Award from the Group Health Foundation. In 2014, he was elected to the board of trustees at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, and in 2015, he was elected to the American Association of Physicians and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as being named as a Fellow for the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society and the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. In 2016, Dr. Offit received the Franklin Founder Award by the City of Philadelphia, The Porter Prize from the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, and the Jonathan E. Rhoads Medal for Distinguished Service to Medicine from The American Philosophical Society. In 2017, he received the Defensor Scientiae Award and an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from The University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. In 2018, he was named to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Dr. Offit is the author of 11 medical narratives that have received numerous accolades:
- The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to Today’s Growing Vaccine Crisis (Yale University Press, 2005)
- Vaccinated: One Man’s Quest to Defeat the World’s Deadliest Diseases (HarperCollins, 2007), for which he won an award from the American Medical Writers Association
- Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure (Columbia University Press, 2008)
- Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All (Basic Books, 2011), which was selected by Kirkus Reviews and Booklist as one of the best non-fiction books of the year
- Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine (HarperCollins, 2013), which won the Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking from the Center for Skeptical Inquiry and was selected by National Public Radio as one of the best books of 2013
- Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Clashes with Modern Medicine (Basic Books, 2015)
- Pandora’s Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong (National Geographic, 2017)
- Bad Advice: Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren’t Your Best Source of Health Information (Columbia University Press, 2018)
- Overkill: When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far (HarperCollins, 2020)
- You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination: The Long and Risky History of Medical Breakthroughs (Basic Books, 2021)
- Tell Me When It’s Over: And Insider’s Guide to Deciphering COVID Myths and Navigating Our Post-Pandemic World (National Geographic, 2024)
Stephen W. Patrick, MD, MPH, MS, FAAP
Stephen W. Patrick, MD, MPH, MS, FAAP, is Chair and O. Wayne Rollins Distinguished Professor of the Department of Health Policy and Management at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, Co-Director of the Emory Health Services Research Center, a practicing neonatologist at Children’s Hospital of Atlanta, and an Adjunct Physician Policy Researcher at RAND Corporation. His NIH-funded research focuses on improving outcomes for pregnant women with opioid use disorder and their infants, as well as families involved in the U.S. child welfare system. He previously served as Senior Policy Advisor to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, where he led the development of a national interagency action plan to improve outcomes for families affected by substance use and contributed to both the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health and the White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis. He also led Firefly, a multidisciplinary treatment program for pregnant women with opioid use disorder and their infants in Nashville, Tennessee, supported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Dr. Patrick’s work includes policy analysis and public polling to inform child health policy at the state and national levels, with a focus on translating research into action. He currently serves on the NIH Organization and Delivery of Health Services Study Section, the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Federal Government Affairs, and the National Academy of Medicine’s Board on Children, Youth, and Families, and has served as a Guest Researcher at the CDC and a voting member on FDA advisory boards focused on pediatric opioid use. He has authored over 140 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Pediatrics, and Health Affairs, and his work has been featured in PBS NewsHour, BBC, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post. His honors include the AMA Foundation Excellence in Medicine Leadership Award, the Nemours Child Health Services Research Award, the Society for Pediatric Research Young Investigator Award, and the Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children’s Health Research. Dr. Patrick earned his degrees from the University of Florida, Florida State University College of Medicine, and Harvard School of Public Health, and completed his training in pediatrics, neonatology, and health services research as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Michigan.
Symposium Schedule
| Time | Session | Location | Speakers / Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00 – 8:45 AM | Registration and Breakfast | Rollins Café | — |
| 9:00 – 9:15 AM | Welcome and Opening Remarks | Rollins Auditorium | Mehul Suthar, PhD Director, CCIV Associate Professor, Emory University School of Medicine |
| 9:15 – 9:45 AM | Internal Speaker 1 | Rollins Auditorium | Jens Wrammert, PhD Associate Professor, Emory Vaccine Center Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases |
| 10:00 – 11:00 AM | Keynote I | Rollins Auditorium | Paul A. Offit, MD Director, Vaccine Education Center Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia |
| 11:00 – 11:30 AM | Rapid-fire Block A (5 speakers) | Rollins Auditorium | Shane Conyers, MPH – Identifying the Optimal Schedule for a Multi-Pathogen Combination Vaccine for Diarrheal Disease Daniel Kim – The TLR 7/8 Agonist, INI-4001, Induces Immune Activation and Slows Viral Load Decline in SIV-Infected Infant Rhesus Macaques William Gansereit – Parental Polio Vaccine Attitude, Disease Knowledge, and Characteristics Anuradha Rao, PhD – Detection of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Using Commercial Molecular Influenza A Tests Georgios Dangas – Epigenetic Silencing of HBV cccDNA: Role of Histone H1-0 in Host Restriction and Viral Evasion |
| 11:30 – 12:30 PM | Networking Lunch | HSRB2 Atrium | — |
| 1:00 – 1:45 PM | Keynote II | Rollins Auditorium | Stephen Patrick, MD, MPH, MS, FAAP O. Wayne Rollins Distinguished Professor and Chair Department of Health Policy and Management, Rollins School of Public Health |
| 1:45 – 2:15 PM | Internal Speaker 2 | HSRB2 Atrium | Christina “Kristy” Rostad, MD Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases |
| 2:15 – 2:45 PM | Rapid-fire Block B (5 speakers) | Rollins Auditorium | Devyani Joshi – Infants’ Humoral Immune Responses to Primary Influenza Vaccination and Infection Mahfuza Akter – Community-Based Household Surface Sampling: A Citizen Science Approach for Recovery of Multidrug-Resistant Enterobacterales Barrett Breeze – Household and Environmental Factors Associated with Community Spread of Multi-Drug Resistant Enterobacterales Christelle Radi – Ultrasound Imaging of Draining Lymph Nodes: A Surrogate Marker for Vaccine-Induced Immune Activation Katherine Shen – Community Reservoirs of Antibiotic Resistance: Enterobacterales in Green Algae from Chicago Waterways |
| 2:45 – 3:00 PM | Sponsor Remarks | Rollins Auditorium | Pfizer |
| 3:00 – 3:45 PM | Poster Session | Atrium | 1. Buchanan – Pediatric Vaccine Hesitancy and Families Seeking Care in Urgent Care Centers 2. Xu – Antibody-dependent Zika Virus Infection of Human Placental Macrophages through FcγRIA 3. Zhou – SARS-CoV-2 EndoU-ribonuclease Regulates RNA Recombination and Impacts Viral Fitness 4. Fan – Design and Synthesis of Novel Dimeric Molecules Targeting HBV Capsid Assembly 5. Sankaranarayanan – Developing a Mouse Model to Assess mRNA Vaccine-induced Enhanced Respiratory Syncytial Disease 6. Karver – Discovery and Characterization of IFI44 as a Key Hepatocyte ISG Restricting Hepatitis B Virus Infection 7. Bellman – Clinical Predictors of Fatality in Pediatric Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever Cases in Sonora, Mexico (2004–2024) 8. Torres Rivera – Imaging HIV-1 Restriction by MX2 9. Morgan – The Furin Cleavage Sequence Is Not Required for SARS-CoV-2 Transmission 10. Bowers – Multi-pathogen Screening of Lesion Swab Specimens Submitted for Clinical Testing at a National Reference Laboratory 11. Cortez – Endosomal Fusion of SARS-CoV-2 Mediated by TMPRSS2-cleaved Spike Glycoprotein 12. Verma – Multifaceted Mechanism of Inhibition of Enveloped Virus Fusion by Interferon-Induced Transmembrane Proteins 13. Biswas – Breaking the Chain: Multi-Country Insights on Adolescent Social Mixing to Guide TB Prevention Strategies 14. Carr – Modulation of Purinergic Signaling by Streptococcal Nucleotidases 15. Shooter – Production of Rhinovirus C2-specific Monoclonal Antibodies Using Hybridoma Technology 16. Moore – Methods for Estimating VE Using Routine School Testing Data with Differential Testing Behavior 17. Cockerham – CD8+ T-Cell Activation and Partial Viremia Control After ART Cessation in SIV-Infected Infant Macaques 18. McFadden – Modifying PF74 Improves Anti-HIV-1 Activity Against the Resistance-associated Capsid Mutation N74D 19. Kar – SARS-CoV-2 Priming Exacerbates Influenza Severity and Mortality 20. Malakar – Modeling West Nile Virus Infection and Host Response in Human Brain Organoids 21. Weimer – Delineating Triatoma sp. nov., a Novel Chagas Disease Vector from Northern Belize 22. Sabino – Impact of Freeze-Thaw Cycles on Detection of RSV Antigens and RNA in Novel Multiplex Diagnostic Assays 23. Francois – Assessing Opt-Out HIV Testing in Pediatric Emergency Departments After Two Years of Implementation 24. Komal – A Phase 1 Study of Inactivated Rotavirus Vaccine CDC-9 in Healthy Adults 25. Zaki Pour – Experimental CD8 Cell Depletion Induces Viral Reactivation in ART-suppressed SIV-infected Rhesus Macaques 26. Leach – Antibodies Produced After Infection with WNV-1 Have Reduced Neutralizing Ability Against WNV-2 27. Edara – Anti-SIV Env RhmAbs and Venetoclax During Analytical Therapeutic Interruption as a HIV-1 Cure Strategy 28. Ferrell – Variation Among DENV1 Major Lineages Affects Neutralization by Sera from Naturally Infected and Vaccinated Individuals |
| 3:45 – 4:00 PM | Awards and Closing | Atrium | Best Poster and Best Talk Awards |
| 4:00 – 4:30 PM | Light Refreshments and Networking | Rollins Café | — |
Special Thanks to our Donors, Javier and Dolores Goizueta, and our sponsors, Sanofi and Pfizer for helping make this event a possibility.