Professor Lawrence Corey is Head of the University of Washington’s Virology Division and Co-Director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute. He is also a Professor of Medicine and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Washington. In 1999, Dr. Corey was selected by the National Institutes of Health to lead the HIV Vaccine Trials Network. Research in Dr. Corey’s laboratories includes studies dealing with the pathogenesis, prevention and treatment of HIV and herpes virus infections. These investigations include studies of the host response to HSV infections and development of vaccines for both genital herpes and HIV. His labs have also pioneered novel tests for diagnosing and monitoring therapies for viral infections. In addition, Dr. Corey is an infectious disease attending physician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research.
Professor Robin Patel is Professor of Medicine, Professor of Microbiology, and Director of the Clinical Bacteriology and Infectious Diseases Research Laboratories at the Mayo Clinic. Doctor Patel is board certified in Infectious Diseases (American Board of Internal Medicine), Medical Microbiology/Public Health Microbiology (American Board of Medical Microbiology), Clinical Pathology/Medical Microbiology (American Board of Pathology), and Internal Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (Collège des Médecins du Québec and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada). Doctor Patel’s research focuses on clinical bacteriology diagnostic testing, antimicrobial resistance, and microbial biofilms. She has published over 186 peer reviewed manuscripts and 16 book chapters, and has presented more than 227 abstracts. She is a member of the editorial boards of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, and Clinical Microbiology Reviews, and an associate editor for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. She is the director of the Mayo Medical School Microbiology course.
Professor Robin Wood is the Director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre (DTHC) at the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town. Professor Wood has a strong track-record of scientific leadership in HIV treatment and Infectious Disease research. He is presently a member of the governing council of the International AIDS Society and was a founding member of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society. He has been a technical advisor to the World Health Organisation, protocol chair and protocol development committee member for the ACTG, CIPRA, CPCRA, IEDEA and INSIGHT networks of the National Institutes of Health, USA, the ARTlinc collaboration of the Agence Nationale Recherches sur le Sida (ANRS), France and the SPIRIT and SPARTAC studies of the UK Medical Research Council.