Agenda

Jeremy Farrar is Director of the Wellcome Trust - a politically and financially independent global charitable foundation that exists to improve health by helping big ideas to thrive. Jeremy is a clinician scientist who before joining Wellcome was, for eighteen years, Director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Viet Nam, where his research interests were in infectious diseases and global health with a focus on emerging infections, he has published almost 600 articles. He was named 12th in the Fortune list of 50 World’s Greatest Leaders in 2015 and was awarded the Memorial Medal and Ho Chi Minh City Medal from the Government of Viet Nam.

In 2018 he was awarded the President Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian of the Year Award. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences UK, the National Academies USA, the European Molecular Biology Organisation and a Fellow of The Royal Society.  Jeremy was knighted in the Queen’s 2018 New Year Honours for services to Global Health. 

Shabir Madhi is Professor of Vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; and co-founder and co-Director of the African Leadership Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE). He currently also holds the positions of Director of the South African Medical Research Council Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytical Research Unit (VIDA) and is Research Chair in Vaccine Preventable Diseases of Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation. He is the National Principal Investigator and Protocol co-Chair of the first two COVID-19 vaccine studies being undertaken in South Africa.

Dr. Youngmee Jee is Special Advisor to the Prime Minister in health and Chief Executive Officer, Institut Pasteur Korea. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. Dr. Jee has broad experience in collaborating with WHO and international public health partners. Currently, she is a member of the WHO International Health Regulation Emergency Committee on COVID-19 and of the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Blueprint on Research and Development Preparedness for Epidemics. From 2014 to 2019, she served as Director-General of the Center for Infectious Disease Research of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and led various international activities including the WHO-Korea Joint Mission on MERS Outbreak in 2015 and the WHO International Health Regulation (IHR) Joint External Evaluation (JEE) on national public health emergency response capacity in 2017. She received a President Medal of Distinguished Service in 2017. She also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Vaccine Institute (2016-2019) and President of the Korean Society of Infectious Diseases (2018-2019). During 2007-2014, Dr. Jee worked for the Expanded Programme on Immunization in the WHO Western Pacific Region to coordinate national and regional public health institutes in over 20 countries in the region. She received her M.D. from Seoul National University Medical School (1986), a Diploma in Medical Microbiology (1988) and her Ph.D. in Virology from the University of London (1997). 

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected as WHO Director-General for a five-year term by WHO Member States at the Seventieth World Health Assembly in May 2017. He is the first WHO Director-General to have been elected from multiple candidates by the World Health Assembly, and is the first person from the WHO African Region to serve as WHO’s chief technical and administrative officer. Immediately after taking office on 1 July 2017 Dr. Tedros outlined five key priorities for the Organization: universal health coverage; health emergencies; women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health; health impacts of climate and environmental change; and a transformed WHO.

Prior to his election as WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012–2016. In this role he led efforts to negotiate the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, in which 193 countries committed to the financing necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Dr. Tedros served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Health from 2005–2012, where he led a comprehensive reform of the country’s health system. All roads lead to universal health coverage for Dr. Tedros, and he has demonstrated what it takes to expand access to health care with limited resources. The transformation he led as Ethiopia’s Minister of Health improved access to health care for millions of people. Under his leadership Ethiopia invested in critical health infrastructure, expanded its health workforce, and developed innovative health financing mechanisms.

Beyond Ethiopia, Dr. Tedros’ global leadership on malaria, HIV/AIDS, and maternal and child health has been immensely impactful. He was elected as Chair of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Board in 2009, and previously served as Chair of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership Board, and Co-chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Board.

Born in the city of Asmara, Eritrea, Dr. Tedros holds a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) in Community Health from the University of Nottingham and a Master of Science (MSc) in Immunology of Infectious Diseases from the University of London. Dr. Tedros is globally recognised as a health scholar, researcher, and diplomat with first-hand experience in research, operations, and leadership in emergency responses to epidemics.

Throughout his career Dr. Tedros has published numerous articles in prominent scientific journals, and received awards and recognition from across the globe. He received the Decoration of the Order of Serbian Flag in 2016, and was awarded the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian Award in recognition of his contributions to the field of public health in 2011.

Nicole Lurie, MD, MSPH is currently the Strategic Advisor to the CEO and response lead at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). She is also a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Medical School, a member of the research faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine. She served an 8-year term as Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the US Department of Health and Human Services. In that role she led the HHS response to numerous public health emergencies, ranging from infectious disease to natural and man-made disasters and is responsible for many innovations in emergency preparedness and response. She also chaired the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise, a government wide organization ultimately responsible for the development of medical countermeasures, including vaccines against pandemics and emerging threats.  

Dr. Lurie has a long history in health services research. Prior to federal service, she was the Paul O'Neill Professor of Policy Analysis at RAND, where she started and led the public health preparedness program and RAND's Center for Population Health and Health Disparities. She has also had leadership roles in academia, as Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Minnesota, as Medical Advisor to the Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Health, and as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health at the US Department of Health and Human Services. 

Dr. Lurie received her BA and MD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed her residency and public health training at UCLA. Her research has focused on access to and quality of care, health system redesign, equity, mental health, public health and preparedness. She is recipient of numerous awards and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.  She continues to practice clinical medicine in a community clinic in Washington DC.

A medical doctor and infectious disease epidemiologist, Dr. Seth Berkley joined Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance as its CEO in August 2011, spearheading its mission to protect the world’s poorest children by improving access to new and underused vaccines. In its 20 years of existence, Gavi has reached more than 820 million children in the 73 poorest countries. In 2015, Dr. Berkley led Gavi to its second replenishment, raising US$ 7.5 billion in donor commitments. In June 2020, Dr. Berkley led Gavi to its third successful replenishment, raising US$ 8.8 billion and exceeding the ask of at least US$ 7.4 billion in the presence of 42 heads of state. The ambitious goals for the 2021–2025 strategic period are to reach 300 million more children, preventing an additional 7–8 million deaths and contributing to a further US$ 80–100 billion in economic benefits.

Dr. Berkley is co-leading the Vaccines Pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, working to develop and distribute a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine globally. In July 2020, Fortune honoured him with a leadership award at Brainstorm Health, calling Gavi “arguably the most productive multilateral health collaboration in history.” Under Dr. Berkley’s leadership, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance received the 2019 Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award for providing sustained access to childhood vaccines in the world’s poorest countries, as well as the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 2020.

Prior to Gavi, in 1996, Dr. Berkley founded the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the first vaccine product development public-private sector partnership, where he served as President and CEO for 15 years. Under his leadership, IAVI created a virtual vaccine product development effort involving scientists from low-income countries, industry and academia – developing and testing HIV vaccines around the world. He also oversaw a global advocacy programme that ensured HIV vaccines received prominent attention in the media and in forums such as the G8, the European Union and the United Nations.

Previously, Dr. Berkley served as an officer of the Health Sciences Division at The Rockefeller Foundation. He has worked for the Center for Infectious Diseases of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the Massachusetts Department of Public Health; and the Carter Center, where he was assigned as an epidemiologist at the Ministry of Health in Uganda. Dr. Berkley played a key role in Uganda’s first national HIV sero-survey and helped develop its national AIDS Control Program. He has been featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine; recognised by TIME magazine as one of “The TIME 100 – The World’s Most Influential People”; and named by WIRED magazine as among “The WIRED 25 – a salute to dreamers, inventors, mavericks, leaders.” His TED talks have been viewed by more than 2.3 million people, and he has published over 250 articles and opinion pieces. He has consulted or worked in more than 50 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Dr. Berkley sits on a number of international steering committees and corporate and not-for-profit boards, including those of Gilead Sciences and the New York Academy of Sciences, and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Geneva’s Institute of Global Health in the Faculty of Medicine.

Dr. Berkley received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Brown University and trained in internal medicine at Harvard University. In 2013, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, for services to global public health and advancing the right to health care for all.

Melinda French Gates is a philanthropist, businesswoman, and global advocate for women and girls.

As the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda sets the direction and priorities of the world’s largest philanthropy. She is also the founder of Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company working to drive social progress for women and families in the United States, and the author of the bestselling book The Moment of Lift.

Melinda grew up in Dallas, Texas. She received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Duke University and an MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School. Melinda spent the first decade of her career developing multimedia products at Microsoft before leaving the company to focus on her family and philanthropic work. She lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband, Bill. They have three children, Jenn, Rory, and Phoebe.

Wilmot James, PhD is Senior Research Scholar at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP). He received his PhD (Sociology and African History) from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Dr. James was a post-doctoral fellow of the Southern African Research Program at Yale University, the American Bar Foundation in Chicago and the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. Dr. James pursued his interest in science and society (James, Nature’s Gifts: Why we are the way we are, WITS University Press, 2010) as a visiting fellow at the Economic and Social Research Council at the University of Edinburgh and as the Gordon Moore Visiting Professor in the Humanities at the California Institute of Technology.

Dr. James is a policy specialist. He joined the University of Cape Town in 1986 as a member of the academic faculty in sociology, and became department chair in 1992. His research on labor migration (James, Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa’s Gold Industry, Indiana University Press, 1992) led to his appointment as chairman of the task team that designed the first post-apartheid refugee protection and immigration policies under President Nelson Mandela. As a Member of Parliament and opposition spokesman on health and, given Africa’s disease burden and infectious disease outbreak patterns, Dr. James developed an enduring interest in global health security policy formulation and practice. He authored and edited twenty books and policy monographs, forty plus journal articles and book chapters and over 200 opinion/education articles. He is a contributing author to and editor of Vital Signs: Health Security in South Africa (Brenthurst Foundation, 2020). His greatest honor was to serve as a co-editor of the late President Nelson Mandela’s presidential speeches published as Nelson Mandela In His Own Words (Little Brown and Co, 2003). 

As Trustee of the Ford Foundation and Chairman of its Education, Media, Arts and Culture (EMAC) committee, Dr. James oversaw the introduction of a $320 million International Fellowship Program, the largest single program investment the Foundation ever made. Over 4,300 students graduated with masters level degrees worldwide with support from the Foundation.  

Dr. James current research interests are in global health security with a particular interest in the welfare of children. He also serves as a senior consultant to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and is an honorary professor of public health at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

Ruth Faden is the founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She was the Berman Institute’s Director from 1995 until 2016, and the inaugural Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director (2014­-2016). Dr. Faden is also the Philip Franklin Wagley Professor of Biomedical Ethics. Her research focuses on structural injustice theory and its manifestations in national and global challenges in public health, food and agriculture, education policy, learning health care, health systems design and priority setting, and access to the benefits of global investments in biomedical research. Dr. Faden also works on ethical challenges in biomedical science, with a particular focus on women’s health and the rights and interests of pregnant women. Currently Dr. Faden is working at the intersection of structural justice and the COVID-19 response, primarily in vaccine allocation and prioritization and K-12 education.

Anthony S. Fauci, MD is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, where he oversees an extensive research portfolio focused on infectious and immune-mediated diseases. As the long-time chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, Dr. Fauci has made many seminal contributions in basic and clinical research and is one of the world’s most-cited biomedical scientists. He was one of the principal architects of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a program that has saved millions of lives throughout the developing world.  

Professor George F. Gao obtained his PhD (DPhil) degree from Oxford University, UK and did his postdoc work in both Oxford University and Harvard University (with a brief stay in Calgary University). His research interests include enveloped viruses and molecular immunology. His group research is mainly focusing on the enveloped virus entry and release, esp. influenza virus interspecies transmission (host jump), structure-based drug-design and structural immunology. He is also interested in virus ecology, esp. the relationship between influenza virus and migratory birds or live poultry markets and the bat-derived virus ecology and molecular biology. He has published more than 450 refereed papers, 10 books or book chapters and has applied and obtained more than 25 UK, US and Chinese patents. His research has recently expanded on public health policy and global health strategy. He led the China CDC team in 2014 (From Sep. to Nov.) to work in Sierra Leone for fighting against Ebola and his heroic role there has made a great deal for the field work. Gao is a member (academician) of Chinese Academy of Sciences, a fellow of The Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS, also known as The World Academy of Sciences), a fellow of American Academy of Microbiology (AAM)and an associate member of EMBO. Gao is a recipient of several international and national awards, including TWAS Medical Prize (2012), Nikkei Asian Prize (2014) and HLHL S&T Advancement Award (2015).

Richard J. Hatchett, MD, is Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a partnership of public, private, philanthropic and civil organizations that supports the development of vaccines against high priority public health threats and technology platforms to allow the rapid development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Dr. Hatchett was previously the acting Director of the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and served as Director of Medical Preparedness Policy on the Homeland and National Security Councils under Presidents Bush and Obama, respectively.  He received his medical degree from Vanderbilt and completed clinical training in internal medicine and medical oncology at Cornell and Duke.

Dr. Moncef Slaoui is the Chief Advisor to Operation Warp Speed. He brings to the mission extensive experience in vaccine and Medicines development and production from a long career in the field of life sciences.

Dr. Slaoui spent nearly 30 years at GlaxoSmithKline holding a number of leadership positions including member of the board; Chairman of Pharmaceutical R&D; Chairman Global R&D, Vaccines & Oncology; and Chairman, Global Vaccines. As Chairman of Pharmaceutical R&D, Dr. Slaoui led a restructuring to improve focus on innovation and productivity. As Chairman of Global Vaccines, Dr. Slaoui was directly involved in the company's vaccine pipeline, which led the industry during his time, with the broadest portfolio of vaccines of any company—48—and the creation of 14 new vaccines in ten years. Dr. Slaoui led the development of a number of novel vaccines, including Cervarix, to prevent cervical cancer; Mosquirix, a candidate to prevent malaria; Rotarix, to prevent rotavirus gastroenteritis; Shingrix, to prevent shingles; and Synflorix, to prevent pneumococcal disease.

Dr. Slaoui is also a partner at Medicxi, a venture capital firm specializing in seed, Series A, early stage and late stage life sciences investments; he also sat on various biotechnology companies’ boards,, including Moderna, Inc., Lonza Group AG, Galvani, and Vaxcyte, an independent vaccine development platform.

Among other honors, in 2016, Dr. Slaoui was recognized as one of Fortune's 50 Greatest World Leaders for his work in under-researched diseases common in the developing world, served on the Advisory Committee to the Director of the NIH from 2011 to 2016, and has advised the U.S. President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Dr. Slaoui holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Immunology from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, in Belgium; completed postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School and Tufts University School of Medicine; and has been a professor of Immunology at the University of Mons, Belgium. He received an accelerated Master of Business Administration from IMD, Switzerland in 1998.

Marc Grodman, MD, is the co-Founder and CEO of Genosity Inc, a life science biotechnology company that provides novel software, technical and laboratory solutions to enable its strategic partners to realize the value of precision medicine. He previously founded BioReference Laboratories in 1986 which became the third largest commercial laboratory in US with annual revenues approaching $1B, and served for almost 30 years as its CEO (BRLI-Nasdaq-NMS). He created specialty business units, GenPath and GenPath Oncology, focusing on Women’s Health and Oncology respectively. Grodman acquired GeneDx in 2005 and turned it and other sequencing services at BioReference to almost $200M in revenue across multiple clinical areas while establishing GeneDx as world-leader in clinical genomic testing for rare and ultra-rare disorders. BioReference was also the first clinical lab to offer Next-Gen Sequencing based tests. As Chair, Vice Chair and Board Member of the American Clinical Laboratory Association, Grodman is leading efforts to address issues such as the challenging reimbursement environment, FDA and CMS regulations, guidelines for testing, competitive bidding, PAMA, patient copay and associated changes with regard to passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Grodman also served as Board Member and Chair of Patient Safety and Quality Task Force of the Health Care Leadership Council. A member of the CUIMC Board of Advisors, Dr. Grodman has been on staff at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons since 1983, made teaching rounds for over 25 years, and has created and endowed new programs in alternative career tracks for medical students. 

Since 1989, Stanley M. Bergman has been Chairman of the Board and CEO of Henry Schein, Inc., a Fortune 500® company and the world's largest provider of health care products and services to office-based dental and medical practitioners, with more than 19,000 Team Schein Members and operations or affiliates in 31 countries. Henry Schein is a member of the S&P 500® index. In 2019, the Company's sales from continuing operations reached $10 billion. Henry Schein has been a Fortune World's Most Admired Company for 20 consecutive years.

Mr. Bergman serves as a board member or advisor for numerous institutions including New York University College of Dentistry; the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine; the Columbia University Medical Center; University of the People; Hebrew University; Tel Aviv University; the University of the Witwatersrand Fund; The World Economic Forum’s Health Care Governors; the Business Council for International Understanding and the Metropolitan Opera.  Mr. Bergman is an honorary member of the American Dental Association and the Alpha Omega Dental Fraternity.  Mr. Bergman is the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor; the CR Magazine Corporate Responsibility Lifetime Achievement Award; the 2017 CEO of the Year award by Chief Executive Magazine; Honorary Doctorates from The University of the Witwatersrand, Western University of Health Sciences, Hofstra University, A.T. Still University’s Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health, Case Western Reserve University, and Farmingdale State College (SUNY); and Honorary Fellowships from King’s College London - Dental Institute and the International College of Dentists.

Stan and Dr. Marion Bergman and their family are active supporters of organizations fostering the arts, higher education, and cultural diversity, as well as grassroots health care and sustainable entrepreneurial economic development initiatives in the United States, Africa, and other developing regions of the world.

Mr. Bergman is a graduate of The University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and is a South African Chartered Accountant and a NYS Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

Kai Kupferschmidt is a science journalist based in Berlin. He has a degree in molecular biomedicine and has reported on infectious diseases all over the world. As a contributing correspondent for Science Magazine he has been following the COVID-19 pandemic since January 2020. He also writes for German media outlets and has written two books, most recently one about the science of the color blue.