APUA's Superbugs and Drugs® blog will feature the input of APUA’s distinguished Expert Panel whose members hold vast global experience and expertise in improving antibacterial treatment and containment of antibiotic resistance. Please read the members' biographies below:
Jacques F. Acar, MD
Dr. Jacques F. Acar is Emeritus Professor at the Pierre et Marie Curie Université in Paris. Previously he was chairman of the department of clinical microbiology and chief of the Research Unit on Antimicrobial Mechanism of Action and Resistance. In addition, he served as Head of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at Hôpital Saint-Joseph and Hôpital Broussais. Dr. Acar has served as President of the French Interdisciplinary Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, the International Society of Infectious Diseases, and the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. He was an expert on antimicrobial resistance to the World Health Organization and consultant to the World Organisation for Animal Health. Dr. Acar earned his medical degree at the University of Paris. Dr. Acar is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology and served as co chairman for the Colloquium “Antibiotic Resistance: An ecological perspective on an old problem” in 2009.
Julian Davies, Ph.D.
Dr. Julian E. Davies is an Emeritus Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Chief Scientific Officer of TerraGen Diversity, Inc., Vancouver, B.C. Before joining UBC as head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in 1992, Dr. Davies held academic positions at the University of Wisconsin, University of Geneva, and Institut Pasteur. Dr. Davies is internationally acclaimed for his research on aspects of microbial ecology related to disease, particularly the origins and mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, with special reference to gene capture and horizontal gene transfer. He is the current President of the American Society for Microbiology and Fellow of both the Royal Societies of London and of Canada.
Sabiha Essack, Ph.D.
Professor Sabiha Essack (B. Pharm., M. Pharm., PhD), Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow who completed research towards her PhD in Pharmaceutical Microbiology at St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry in the United Kingdom. She is a C-rated researcher by the NRF, has established the Antimicrobial Resistance Research Proto-Unit in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmacology and has secured several research grants for Essential National Health Research, from the World Health Organization, the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the National Research Foundation investigating strategies for the prevention and containment of antibiotic resistance.
Dr. Beatriz Pérez-Gorricho
Dr. Pérez-Gorricho is currently Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University Hospital Niño Jesus. Her clinical work and research focuses on antimicrobial use, prevention and management of pediatric infectious diseases. She received her medical degree from the School of Medicine, at the University Complutense of Madrid, Spain. She completed her fellowship on Infectious Diseases at the Ramon y Cajal Hospital where she finished with her research field with her Doctoral Thesis about Antimicrobial Surveillance, Consumption and Mechanisms of Control in Spain in Human and Veterinary Use (Madrid, 1985). This data contributed to the Worldwide Symposium about Antibiotic Consumption which took place in the Fogarty Centre, Bethesda in 1986. She is a member of the European and the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases, member of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Society of Chemotherapy, and member since the beginning first as Secretary and now as Chapter leader of APUA Spain.
Ian M Gould, BSc, MBChB Edinburgh, PhD, FRCP(E), FRCPath
Dr. Gould graduated in Medicine in 1976 in Edinburgh, UK. Since 1986, Dr. Gould has been a Consultant Clinical Microbiologist and Director of Medical Microbiology at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He is a Honorary Professor of Public Health, Epidemiology and Microbiology at the University of Trnava. Dr. Gould was trained in Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in UK, Canada and Africa. He is the editor or board member of several international journals and chairman of various national/international working parties, learned societies and advisory boards on antibiotic policies and resistance. In addition, he is an advisor on antibiotic resistance and prescribing to the Scottish and UK Departments of Health, Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, The International Organisation for Epizoonosis, European Commission, WHO, and Government agencies abroad. Dr. Gould is co-coordinator of the European Union projects ESAR and ARPAC and is the Secretary General of International Society of Chemotherapy. He has over 300 published scientific papers on antibiotic resistance in peer-reviewed journals, standard texts and specialist books.
Kari Grave, MS, Ph.D.
Professor Kari Grave is currently working at the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Department of Food Safety and Infection Biology, Section of Pharmacology and Toxicology. Dr Grave's research area is veterinary pharmacoepidemiology with special emphasis on the usage of antimicrobial agents in animals. She holds a MS of Pharmacy degree from the University of Oslo and a PhD degree from the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science.
Rumina Hasan MBBS, MSc, PhD, FRCPath
Dr. Rumina Hasan is currently Professor in the Department of Pathology & Microbiology at the Aga Khan University (AKU) Karachi, Pakistan. After completing her medical training, she did her post-graduation in clinical microbiology and obtained a Ph.D. in immunology. The AKU associated with a tertiary care hospital based in Karachi has a well established clinical laboratory. Dr. Hasan was instrumental in establishing the microbiology section, and in particular the mycobacterial laboratory which is one of the handful of laboratories in the country performing culture and drug sensitivity testing (DST) for M.tuberculosis. Dr. Hasan’s research interests include antimicrobial resistance and infection control. In mycobacterial diseases her research has focused on studying M.tuberculosis strains from Pakistan for determination of prevalent genogroups and their relationship to drug resistance and pathogenesis.
David L. Heymann, MD
Dr David Heymann is Chair of the Health Protection Agency in London, Head of the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House and Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Previously he was the World Health Organization's Assistant Director-General for Health Security and Environment. He also represented the Director-General for polio eradication. He was Executive Director of the WHO Communicable Diseases Cluster till 2003. He held the post of Director for WHO Programme on Emerging and other Communicable Diseases from 1995 to 1998. He served as the Chief of research activities in the WHO Global Programme on AIDS until 1995. Before joining WHO, Dr Heymann worked for 13 years as a medical epidemiologist in sub-Saharan Africa on assignment from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Adebayo Lamikanra, Ph.D, B.Pharm
Dr. Lamikanra received his B.Pharm (Ife) in 1972 and his Ph.D (Manchester) in 1976. He is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Microbiology at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. Dr. Lamikanra’s main research interests include factors contributing to the development and dissemination of antibiotic resistance in commensals (E. coli and S. aureus) and E. coli associated with childhood diarrheas.
Jay A. Levy, M.D.
Dr. Jay A. Levy is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology, Research Associate in the Cancer Research Institute and the Director of the Laboratory for Tumor and AIDS Virus Research at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Levy obtained his M.D. degree from Columbia University, New York after receiving his B.S. from Wesleyan University and joined the Department of Medicine and the Cancer Research Institute at UCSF in 1972. Dr. Levy co-discovered HIV in 1983 and during the last 28 years, he and his research group have dedicated their efforts to biologic, immunologic, and molecular studies of the AIDS virus. He also discovered a novel immune response that controls HIV infection through the production by CD8+ lymphocytes of an antiviral factor, CAF. Dr. Levy has published nearly 500 articles in virology, immunology and infectious diseases, particularly on HIV/AIDS. He is author or editor of 14 books on virology and immunology and is Editor-in-Chief of the highly cited journal, AIDS. Among his publications are his acclaimed four volume series, The Retroviridae and his seminal, sole-authored book, HIV and the Pathogenesis of AIDS, now in its third edition (2007) and being translated into several languages. Dr. Levy’s current studies involve host immune responses to HIV and the development of an HIV vaccine.
Scott A. McEwen, DVM, DVSc
Dr. Scott McEwen obtained his DVM and Doctor of Veterinary Science degrees from the University of Guelph. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Population Medicine, Ontario Veterinary College. His research focuses on the epidemiology of foodborne infections in food animal populations, particularly E. coli and antibiotic resistant organisms, but also Salmonella and other pathogens. He has extensive experience in conducting epidemiological studies in cattle, swine and other food animal species and has also participated in a number of studies of zoonotic infections in humans, including antimicrobial resistance in commensal and pathogenic bacteria. He is author or co-author of over 170 publications in refereed scientific journals and has delivered invited research presentations in ten countries. He chaired Health Canada’s Advisory Committee on Animal Uses of Antimicrobials and Impact on Resistance and Human Health, the World Health Organization’s evaluation of the termination of the use of antimicrobial growth promoters in Denmark, the FAO/OIE/WHO Expert Workshop on Non-human Antimicrobial Usage and Antimicrobial Resistance: Scientific Assessment.
Cliodna McNulty, Ph.D.
Dr. Cliodna McNulty is a medical microbiologist and head of the Health Protection Agency’s Primary Care Unit based in Gloucester. The aim of the Unit is to improve the management of infections in the community through research, guidance and education. Dr McNulty has led the production and review of the HPA antibiotic and general practice microbiology laboratory use guidance, working with Clinical Knowledge Summaries and other professional societies. She was a member of the NICE development group for respiratory tract infection guidance and has lead RCTs evaluating the implementation of primary care guidance through workshops. Dr McNulty has been involved in the development of materials for the English Antibiotic Awareness Campaigns and has led several large surveys of the public’s attitudes to antibiotics. She sits on the Department of Health Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Acquired Infection (ARHAI) and chairs the ARHAI Public Education Subgroup. Dr McNulty leads e-Bug; a European project, now in ten languages, which aims to produce resources for junior and senior schools across Europe that teach about microbes, spread of infection, prevention of infection and prudent antibiotic use.
Iruka Okeke, Ph.D.
Iruka Okeke trained in pharmacy and microbiology at Obafemi Awolowo University Nigeria and the University of Maryland. She is presently Associate Professor of Molecular Microbiology at Haverford College, PA, USA, and a 2010-11 fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Berlin. Okeke’s research is focused on bacterial drug resistance, diarrheal pathogens and laboratory practice in Africa. As a Branco Weiss Fellow of the Society-in-Science, Switzerland, she engaged in collaborative research to determine the genetic basis for resistance emergence and spread in West Africa. She is a co-editor of Antibiotic Resistance in Developing Countries (Springer) and author of Divining Without Seeds: The Case for Strengthening Laboratory Medicine in Africa (Cornell Univ. Press).
Jean Patel, PhD, D(ABMM)
Dr. Patel is currently the Deputy Director of the Office of Antimicrobial Resistance at CDC. Previously, she had responsibility for reference susceptibility testing and antimicrobial resistance research in the Division of Healthcare Quality promotion at CDC. She also serves as a member of the subcommittee for antimicrobial susceptibility testing for the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute.
Lance Price, Ph.D.
Dr. Lance Price is a Senior Scientist, Office of Wellness and Healthy Communities, at the Interdisciplinary Health Policy Institute as well as a Senior Science Advisor at the Pew Charitable Trusts. He is a molecular microbiologist and public health researcher. Lance is also the director of the Center for Metagenomics and Human Health at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and was formerly a Research Specialist for the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production and a Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future Predoctoral Fellow. Dr. Price’s current research projects focus on the complex interactions between humans and microbes as well as the public health impacts of the industrialization of food animal production. He has twice presented his research to the US congress, as well as being an author of many peer-reviewed journal articles on topics ranging from anthrax research to occupational health. As an Arizona native, Dr. Price earned his Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and a Master’s degree in Biology from Northern Arizona University then matriculated to the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health to earn his Doctorate in Environmental Health Sciences.
Steven J. Projan, PhD
Dr. Projan is the Senior Vice President of Research and Development and Innovative Medicines Head of Infectious Diseases and Vaccines at MedImmune. Prior to this, he was Vice President of Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research and served as its Global Head of Infectious Diseases. He was Director of Antibacterial Research at Wyeth Research for 15 years, where he focused on bacterial pathogenicity, antimicrobial drug resistance and anti-infective drug discovery. Dr. Projan led the team that discovered and identified tigecycline (GAR-936), a 'well-balanced' antibacterial agent active resistant bacteria, as a potential clinical candidate in 1994. He served as the Vice President of Biological Technologies at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and as a Director of Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. He was also a Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Oragenics Inc. Dr. Projan holds a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from Columbia University.
Marilyn C. Roberts, Ph.D., MS
Dr. Roberts received her PhD at the University of Washington on plasmids and conjugation in N. gonorrhoeae. She was a Research Associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory and did a postdoctoral Fellowship in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Orthopedic Hospital on antibiotic resistance in H. influenzae. She was a Visiting Scientist at the University of Leicester, England working on chloramphenicol acetyltransferases from H. influenza and is currently a Professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Dr. Robert's research interests include identification of vancomycin resistant enterococci [VRE] and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus [MRSA] in environmental samples, antibiotic resistance and mercury resistance genes in the environment, the mechanisms of resistance, how resistance spreads through bacterial populations in man and the environment and ultimately, how these genes affect therapy. The laboratory is also interested in antibiotic resistance in oral and urogenital bacteria in general. Another focus is on the oral pathogen Streptococcus mutants and how treatments affect the organism's cariogenic potential, as well as, levels in health and disease.
E. John Threlfall, Ph.D.
Professor Threlfall has worked in the Health Protection Agency for over 30 years, specializing in antimicrobial resistance and molecular epidemiology with particular emphasis on Salmonella infections. He is currently the Director of Laboratory of Enteric Pathogens at Health Protection Agency of United Kingdom.
Philip D. Walson, M.D.
Dr. Walson is Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Therapeutics and serves on the Editorial Board of many other medical journals. He retired in 2008 from the University of Cincinnati but continues to work as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the Medical School at the Geörg-August-Universität, Göttingen Germany where he teaches medical students, participates in research and acts as an advisor on Clinical Trials. He is Board certified in Pediatrics, Medical Toxicology and Clinical Pharmacology and is a certified physician investigator (CPI). Prior to his move to Cincinnati in 2000, he had spent 19 years at The Ohio State University as a full tenured Professor of Pediatrics, Pharmacology and Pharmacy and Chief of Clinical Pharmacology/Toxicology and Medical Director of the TDM/Toxicology laboratory (which he started) at Children’s Hospital, Columbus. He was a co-founder, Director of Clinical Pharmacology, and Chief Scientific Officer of Pediatric Clinical Trials International (PCTI ), a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary of Children’s Hospital, Columbus, devoted to development of pediatric therapeutics. In Cincinnati he was a tenured Professor of Pediatrics, Pharmacology and Pharmacy as well as Director of the Clinical Pharmacology Division and Clinical Trials Office at Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio. He is past-Chair of the Pediatric Expert Panel of the US Pharmacopeia (USP), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP ) Section on Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and the AAP Committee on Drugs. He has over 35 years experience designing and conducting clinical trials in pediatric and adult subjects. He is currently Chair of both the Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) for pediatric trials conducted by the FDA/NICHD under the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA) and the Pediatric Advisory Committee for INC Research (a global Contract Research Organization-CRO). He serves as a member or chair of Data Monitoring Committees (DMC) for clinical trials being conducted by a number of pharmaceutical companies.
