IRIDS Virtual Science Talks

Gilles Wandeler, MD, MSc, is an attending physician at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Bern University Hospital, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern. He obtained a master’s degree in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and started his research career within the framework of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study. He leads numerous projects on HIV and viral hepatitis infections and currently holds a Professorship from the Swiss National Science Foundation to study HBV functional cure in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is a member of the Scientific Board of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study and the chairman of the EuroSIDA Steering Committee. He teaches at the Universities of Bern, Basel, Bordeaux, Paris and Barcelona. In addition to his clinical work, Prof. Wandeler is involved in clinical and epidemiological research in HIV medicine, both in Switzerland and in sub-Saharan Africa. With his studies on hepatitis B and C co-infections and the evaluation of HIV therapy strategies, he aims to reach a better understanding of the hepatitis C epidemic in homosexual men leading to an improvement of its clinical management thus improving the care of patients.

Vu Ngoc Bao, MD, MA is a medical doctor, researcher, and public health professional with over 20 years of experience in public health programming, behavioral and social science research, behavior change intervention and clinical practice on a variety of health programs, including HIV, tuberculosis (TB), viral hepatitis, sexual and reproductive health, primary health care, and community development. Currently, he is serving as Senior Technical Director for HIV, TB, and viral hepatitis programs at PATH in Vietnam. He was Deputy Chief of Party for USAID/PATH Healthy Markets during the period 2014-2021 that pioneered and successfully advocated for nationwide scale up of innovative approaches, such as HIV lay testing and self-testing, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) through key population-led health services, private sector engagement, and total market approach. He also worked as TB Technical Director that led PATH’s TB portfolio focusing on strengthening TB diagnostic network, public-private mix (PPM), advocacy, communication and social mobilization (ACSM), and pediatric TB since 2011.

Kimberly Green, PhD, leads PATH’s Primary Health Care program. Prior to assuming this role, Dr. Green led PATH’s global HIV/TB/VH portfolio, including the US Agency for International Development/PATH Support for Technical Excellence and Private Sector Sustainability in Vietnam (STEPS) project. Dr. Green has more than 30 years of experience in public health management, policy development, and research. Before joining PATH, Dr. Green directed and supported several global and regional primary health care projects focused on HIV; TB; hypertension; sexual and reproductive health; malaria; and maternal, newborn, and child health and nutrition in Africa and Asia. She has worked with FHI 360, CARE Cambodia, Plan International, and Global Health Council, and was a health fellow with Pact Cambodia. Dr. Green is a clinical associate professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Global Health and deputy editor for the Journal of the International AIDS Society. She also serves on a number of WHO and other scientific guidelines and advisory committees. She holds a master’s degree in international health and development from The George Washington University in Washington, DC, and a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Prof. Puhan studied medicine at the University of Zurich, and earned his PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 2006. From 2008 to 2012, he was a tenure track Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, USA. Since 2013 he serves as chair of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Zurich and as director of the EBPI. Prof. Puhan’s main research interests are in prevention and management of chronic diseases and in the development of tools to support preference-sensitive health care. Prof. Puhan coordinated the Corona Immunitas Initiative that united Swiss national efforts to determine the SARS-CoV-2 immunity of the general population, school children, vulnerable population groups and professional groups at high risk of infection.

Dr. Cervia-Hasler  trained as a physician-scientist at the University Hospital Zurich. After earning his MD, he completed a PhD in Immunology, where he established a multicentric prospective patient cohort and investigated the pathomechanisms of Long COVID. Dr. Cervia-Hasler is passionate about data-driven decision-making, bridging various functional areas, and developing long-sighted strategies at Roche.

Dr. Jochum is an immunologist and virologist by training. His doctoral research focused on the early immune response to viral infection and viral immune evasion strategies at the Helmholtz Center and LMU Munich, Germany. He joined Roche Diagnostics in 2014, where his team is responsible for developing assays for viral diseases, with a major focus on emerging viruses. In recent years, Dr. Jochum and his team were fully engaged in developing diagnostics for SARS-CoV-2 and associated pandemic research.

Prof. Dr. Ayse Deniz Gökengin is an academic staff member in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine at Ege University in Turkey. She was named professor in 2003, and has been acting as the director of the Ege University HIV/AIDS Research and Practice Center since 2009. She has been providing healthcare for HIV patients since 1996 and is one of the leading clinicians in Turkey on HIV/AIDS management.

Deniz Gökengin is the founding member and general secretary of the AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections Society, a board member of the International Union for Sexually Transmitted Infections in Europe, representing Turkey and a member of the Euroguidelines in Central and Eastern Europe (ECEE) Network Group. Her major areas of interest are sexual behavior, social aspects of HIV/AIDS and the medical management of HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Benjamin La Brot is the Global Medical Affairs Lead for Infection & Immunity for Roche Molecular Systems, working on HIV and Hepatitis with a focus in LMICs.  Dr. LaBrot attended the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland and worked as a hospitalist in Ireland before founding the Floating Doctors medical organization in 2009 to deliver medical care and sustainable capacity-building to remote, underserved communities accessible by water. Dr. LaBrot is also the founder of RemoteCare Education, an advisory board member for the Faculty of Remote and Rural Healthcare at the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and Executive Board Member for the Global Coalition for Hepatitis Elimination and a professor of Global Medicine teaching malaria, palliative care in resource-limited settings, and the nuts and bolts of humanitarian aid medical practice at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. 

Dr. Federico García, Ph.D., has worked for the past 10 years in the Microbiology Department of the University Hospital San Cecilio, Granada, Spain, where he serves, since October 2009, as Head of Department. He has served as an Associate Professor in Microbiology for the University of Granada. He is the former Vice President of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases & Clinical Microbiology Dr. Garcia is on hospital and medical school committees, and national and European committees related to HIV resistance. He coordinates the Spanish HIV Research Network Work Package on subtypes and resistance and contributes with several European organizations on HIV resistance (ESAR, Eurocord-CHAIN) and hepatitis resistance (HEPVIR). He has been actively involved in recent research on Transmitted Drug Resistance in Spain and Europe, on genotypic investigation on HIV viral Tropism, and on clinical significance of HIV low and very low-level viraemia. He is now actively involved in hepatitis C virus and hepatitis B virus research activities. He is a past president of GEHEP (Spanish Viral Hepatitis Study Group of the Clinical Microbiology & Infectious diseases Spanish Society), and the coordinator of HEPCRESP, the Spanish national cohort on HCV resistance to new DAAs. He is the former Vice President of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases & Clinical Microbiology. He is a former member of the Forum for HCV Collaborative Research, and the International Collaborative HCV Resistance database. Dr. Garcia received his Ph.D. from the University of Granada and is a member of professional and scientific societies, including the European Society for Antiviral Resistance, the Spanish Group for AIDS study, and the Spanish Group for Hepatitis Study.  He is reviewer of HIV & HCV papers for national and international journals.

 Dr. Ralf Bollhagen is a senior scientist working at Roche Diagnostics GmbH for the past 30 years. He has record track of patents filed, including a pretreatment method for rapid detection of HCV core antigen, and inventions related to a soluble rubella E1 antigen and variants of this peptide, and publications on the field of Rubella and hepatitis C.

Dr. Marianne Leruez-Ville is a MD specialized in Clinical Virology and holds a PHD in Virology. She is Assistant Professor and the head of the Virology laboratory of Necker-Hospital for sick children in Paris, France. She is currently the director of the congenital CMV laboratory within the French National Reference Center for Herpes Viruses. Dr. Leruez-Ville belongs to a research group focusing on fetal abnormalities and their treatment (EA 7328, Imagine Institute, University of Paris), and a founding member of the European Congenital CMV Initiative (ECCI) – a European group founded to devise and implement concrete actions to deal with the problems linked to congenital CMV infection. Her main research interest is clinical virology in relation to congenital CMV infection.

 Tiziana Lazzarotto is Full Professor of Microbiology and Clinical Microbiology, at the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, School of Medicine at the University of Bologna in Italy. In addition, Tiziana is Head of the Operative Unit of Clinical Microbiology at IRCCS St. Orsola Polyclinic, Bologna and Director of the Post-graduate school in Microbiology and Virology, School of Medicine at the University of Bologna. Tiziana has made significant contributions in the study of viral infections, specifically on the pre and postnatal diagnosis of congenital CMV and Rubella infections and the management of CMV and EBV infections in solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients. Professor Lazzarotto is a member of the managing committee for the Italian Society for Clinical Microbiology (AMCLI) and a founding member of the European Congenital CMV Initiative (ECCI).