Expert Panelists

David Boyle

I am the Chief Scientific Officer and co-leader of the Diagnostics Program at PATH, a global nonprofit improving public health. I investigate the challenges of infectious diseases and nutrition with a specific focus to identify and develop effective diagnostic tools for use in low resource settings. My primary interests are in improving the diagnosis and management of COVID-19, HIV and TB infections and in providing better population surveillance systems to inform on transmission of vaccine preventable diseases such as pneumococcal pneumonia, polio virus, typhoid and now SARS-CoV-2.

UW Dept. of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences profile

Adithya Cattamanchi

Dr. Cattamanchi is a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, and co-Director of the Partnerships for Research in Implementation Science for Equity (PRISE) Center at UCSF. He completed his MD, residency training in internal medicine, fellowship training in pulmonary and critical care medicine and a Master’s in Clinical Research with a concentration in Implementation Science at UCSF before joining the faculty. His research focus on two thematic areas: 1) the development and evaluation of novel diagnostic tests for tuberculosis and 2) improving the delivery and uptake of evidence-based care for tuberculosis in high burden countries. He is currently a PI of 5 NIH R01 and 1 U01 grants related to these themes. In addition to research, Dr. Cattamanchi co-directed the UCSF Implementation Science Program (2015-2021), directs the introductory course in the UCSF Implementation Science Certificate Program and co-directs the IMPACT K12 program which supports career development of junior faculty pursuing implementation research related to heart and lung diseases.

UCSF Profile

Susan Dorman

Susan Dorman received her B.S. degree in Biochemistry from Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, and subsequently received an M.D. degree from Duke University in North Carolina. She completed internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. Dr. Dorman served in the US Public Health Service, and completed a sub-specialty fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. She served on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 2001 through 2017, and is currently Professor of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC. Dr. Dorman and her research team have focused on the development and assessment of new tuberculosis diagnostic tests and treatment strategies. She served as a Principal investigator on a U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded contract, the ‘Tuberculosis Clinical Diagnostics Research Consortium’, which conducted assessments of novel diagnostic tests for tuberculosis at study sites in China, South Korea, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, and Brazil. She also serves as Principal Investigator on phase I, II, and III clinical trials of tuberculosis treatment. She served as Medical Director of the Baltimore City TB Clinic from 2003-2011, and currently serves as TB Medical Consultant to the South Carolina Department of Health. Dr. Dorman is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, with certifications in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

MUSC profile

Amita Gupta

Amita Gupta, MD, MHS, is Faculty Chair of the Johns Hopkins India Institute, Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Clinical Global Health Education, and Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Gupta has 25+ years of experience in international public health and clinical research and 18 years of working in TB, HIV, and other infectious diseases in India. She is an author of more than 200 peer-reviewed research publications and has mentored more than 35 junior scientists in India and the US.

Johns Hopkins Center for Clinical Global Health Education (CCGHE) profile

Willem Hanekom

Willem Hanekom is director of the Africa Health Research Institute in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He has previously led the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) at the University of Cape Town and the TB vaccine program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Professor Willem Hanekom is a clinician-scientist who trained in medicine and paediatrics in South Africa and in paediatric infectious disease and research immunology in the USA. He is a renowned TB vaccine expert, having directed the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative before leading the TB vaccine group at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Here he developed and implemented the Foundation’s first comprehensive TB vaccine strategy, which resulted in major breakthroughs in TB vaccine discovery and development. Willem has >200 publications and has been awarded competitive funding by most prominent agencies. He is the previous chair of both the South African Immunology Society and the Federation of African Immunology Societies and is a member of multiple international advisory committees in tuberculosis, vaccinology and translational immunology.

AHRI

Rhea Lobo

Rhea Lobo is an international award-winning filmmaker with a background in health journalism and is also an extra-pulmonary TB survivor. She is a strong TB advocate and co-founder of Bolo Didi (Translation: Say Sister), an informal network of women TB survivors in India that help people affected by TB navigate health systems, promote treatment adherence and counselling. She has extensive experience in working for both Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases in organizations such as Dalberg Media, The Union and TBpeople. She is of Indian origin and currently resides in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Rhea has made a number of films on health and women empowerment, with a special interest in TB. Her film on Human Rights and TB, Rights and Wrongs… A Tribute to Dean Lewis, received critical acclaim from Dr Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the World Health Organization. Rhea is also a member of the Stop TB Working Group on New Vaccines and is part of the taskforce that is developing Stop TB Partnership’s Global Plan to End TB by 2030.

Tom Scriba

Professor Tom Scriba (PhD) is Deputy Director, Immunology at the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI), University of Cape Town, where he directs the clinical immunology laboratory. He trained in biological sciences at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and obtained a DPhil (PhD) in T cell Immunology at Oxford University, UK. He returned to South Africa in 2006 to complete a postdoctoral fellowship in paediatric and clinical immunology in TB and vaccinology at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM), University of Cape Town. Dr Scriba’s research focuses on TB vaccine development, immunopathogenesis of M. tuberculosis infection as well as development of biomarkers of key transition points between the clinical stages of M. tuberculosis infection and disease. Dr Scriba’s research is funded by competitive grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, European Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, South African Medical Research Foundation, US National Institutes of Health and the European Union.

University of Cape Town IDM profile

Peter Small

Dr. Peter Small is currently independently pursuing his vision to make cough quantifiable and diagnostic. In the distant past he was a medical resident and chief medical resident at UCSF during the dawn of the HIV epidemic. He then moved to Stanford where he completed an Infectious Disease fellowship and spent about a decade on the faculty of Stanford’s Infectious Disease Division. During these years, he published pioneering molecular epidemiological papers that helped to shape the public health response to the resurgence of tuberculosis and seminal papers on mycobacterial genomics. In 2002 he was one of the early employees of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where he developed their tuberculosis strategy, built the foundation’s core partnerships and country programs, hired and manage the Foundation’s TB team and oversaw a large portfolio of vaccine, drug and diagnostic product development activities. In 2011, he relocated to India where he established the foundation’s tuberculosis program in India. In 2015 he joined Stony Brook University as the Founding Director of the University-wide Global Health Institute focused on the use of technology to delivery health care in remote Madagascar and Nepal. He continues to oversee grants and mentor students on tuberculosis research, especially in innovative ways of delivering care such as drone observed therapy. More recently he was a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow exploring a number of efforts culminating in ways to improve medication adherence and Director of Global Health Technologies at Global Health Labs (formerly Global Good) in Bellevue.

UW Dept. of Global Health profile

Tim Sterling

Dr. Sterling received his medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, residency training in internal medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, and fellowship training in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1998, and moved to Vanderbilt in 2003. He is the Director of the Vanderbilt Tuberculosis Center and Director of Epidemiology Research in the Division of Infectious Diseases. Dr. Sterling’s research interests are focused on the epidemiology and treatment of tuberculosis and HIV. Particular areas of interest include treatment of latent tuberculosis infection, drug resistance in M. tuberculosis (including multi-drug resistance and fluoroquinolone resistance), and HIV-related tuberculosis. He also has an interest in the immunogenetic predisposition to tuberculosis, particularly extrapulmonary disease. Dr. Sterling has ongoing research collaborations in Brazil, South Africa, Peru, and the United States.

VUMC Tuberculosis Center

Robyn Waite

Dr. Robyn Waite is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at Results Canada – a not-for-profit organization on a mission to generate the political will to end extreme poverty. She is also the secretariat of the Stop TB Canada Network, where she is working tirelessly alongside partners to reinvigorate and mobilize a community of Canadians committed to ending tuberculosis (TB) at home and abroad. Robyn holds a PhD in International Development Studies from SOAS the University of London, an MSc in Global Health from McMaster University, a Graduate Diplomate from the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, and a BSc (First Class Honours) in Health Promotion from Dalhousie University. She is skilled, passionate, and well-practiced at bringing people together to take meaningful, high impact action in support of creating a fairer and healthier world for all. She is particularly proud of the role she played recently in supporting a civil society led global survey initiative, which sought to understand and raise awareness of how COVID-19 is impacting the TB epidemic.

LinkedIn

Robin Wood

Robin Wood is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Cape Town and director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine. He was educated at King Edward VI School in Birmingham, UK and gained a bachelor degree in biophysics at London University and medical training at Balliol College, Oxford University. His specialist medical training was completed at the University of Cape Town followed by an Infectious Disease Fellowship at Stanford University, California and was awarded a degree of Doctor of Science at the University of Cape Town. He was a pioneer in the introduction of treatment and clinical care of people living with HIV and AIDS in South Africa and was strongly aligned with civil society activists fighting for access to antiretroviral therapy in South Africa. His earlier research was in the interactions between HIV infection and tuberculosis and my current research focuses on tuberculosis transmission and disease control. He lead a multidisciplinary team investigating the aerobiology of tuberculosis transmission in the highly endemic communities of Cape Town.

Desmond Tutu Health Foundation