Experts Interviews

Expert interviews from the International Workshop in Trento, Italy in September 2022

In September this year, MOOD partners were invited to join the 2-days hybrid workshop “Identify signs and drivers of zoonotic diseases emergence and digital data resources for Epidemic Intelligence” organized by Working Package 2 Fondazione Edmund Mach (Italy). This workshop provided a forum for showcasing current research and findings in the field as well as for identifying critical questions and future research challenges including the provisioning of new tools and data for Epidemic Intelligence and highlighting the interdisciplinary approaches needed to meet them under the One Health umbrella. The scientific program was organized in 5 sessions with plenary lectures by international experts (keynote) followed by a presentation session (oral or posters) from MOOD partners and other invited experts. The workshop concluded with a final round table discussion. More information and complete schedule here. During this event, 4 experts agreed to tell us their story, to disseminate the key messages arising from the workshop. Discover them in the interviews bellow.

Interview with Peter Hudson

10.5446/59437(DOI)

https://av.tib.eu/media/59437

Keywords: Conservation ; Pre-emergence prevention ; Surveillance ; Spillover ; Public Health ; One Health ; Science ; Biology

Peter Hudson is a Willaman Professor of Biology at Penn State where he works on the ecology of spillover – both the process of spillover and how the infections invade novel hosts. He was one of the pioneers of wildlife disease ecology and has worked on pathogen and parasite systems in many parts of the world including Trentino. He has more than 300 publications on disease systems, was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society in 2008 and a co-founder of The Random Good Foundation which seeks to tell science stories to the general public for social change. During the MOOD international workshop in Trento, he gave a compelling presentation about “Science and Pre-emergent prevention”. Following this presentation, he was asked a few questions regarding spillovers and pre-emergence prevention by MOOD’s Working Package 8 OpenGeoHub’s communication experts. You can discover them bellow.

Interview with Anna Ruggieri

10.5446/59504 (DOI)

https://av.tib.eu/media/59504

Keywords: Gender ; Infectious diseases ; Sex-related factors ; Public Health ; One Health ; Disease Prevention ; Disease Surveillance

Anna Ruggieri is virologist and senior researcher at Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) in Rome, Italy. Her main background is in RNA viruses-host interactions. Her area of expertise includes Hepatitis C virus and influenza A virus variability and antigenic characterization as well as molecular pathogenesis in vitro. She is now working in the Reference Center for Gender-Specific Medicine at ISS, leading projects on sex differences in protective antibody responses to the anti-viral vaccines in healthcare workers and studying the epigenetic and hormonal mechanisms involved. She is teaching courses for continuing education in medicine and for students of specialty schools of medicine. During the MOOD international workshop in Trento, she gave a fascinating presentation about “Gender and infectious diseases”. Following this presentation, she was asked a few questions regarding sex-related factors and disease risk/surveillance by MOOD’s Working Package 8 OpenGeoHub’s communication experts.

Interview with Donal Bisanzio

10.5446/59551 (DOI)

https://av.tib.eu/media/59551

Keywords: Climate drivers ; Data ; Climate data ; Model ; Epidemiology ; Disease ; International collaboration

Donal Bisanzio is an expert in infectious diseases in humans and animals. As a member of the global health team at RTI international (US) since 2017, he has an academic background in veterinary medicine and extensive experience in field work, including trapping and collecting wild animals. Much of his research focuses on vector-based and zoonotic diseases, such as malaria, Lyme disease, West Nile Virus, and parasitism. He is skilled in spatio-temporal statistical models, network analysis, remote sensing, geographic information systems, and many other methods and technologies for analyzing the spread of disease. His research helps guide interventions and control measures that protect people in vulnerable areas. During the MOOD international workshop in Trento, he gave an insightful presentation about climate drivers and friendly models. Following this presentation, he was asked a few questions regarding methods of analysis of disease spread and international collaboration by MOOD’s Working Package 8 OpenGeoHub’s communication experts.

Interview with Emily Gurley

10.5446/59555 (DOI)

https://av.tib.eu/media/59555

Keywords: Spillover ; Surveillance ; Prevention ; One Health ; Public Health ; Emerging Zoonotic Threats ; Nipah virus ; Infectious diseases ; Children

Dr. Gurley leads multi-disciplinary studies on the transmission, burden and epidemiology of a variety of emerging and vaccine preventable diseases, taking into account the ecological context in which human disease occurs. Her interests include improving the communication and collaboration between field epidemiologists and infectious disease modelers and development of novel surveillance and outbreak detection strategies. She has been working to describe the ecology and epidemiology of Nipah virus since 2004, including identifying transmission pathways and drivers of person-to-person transmission, and designing and testing interventions to prevent human infection. She currently serves on WHO’s Nipah Virus Taskforce, advising on the research and development of medical countermeasures. Her research adopts a One Health approach to the study and prevention of infectious disease, taking into account the ecological context in which human disease occurs. Emily is the Co-Director for the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) site in Bangladesh, aiming to determine the etiology of and prevent child deaths. She also works closely with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Global Disease Detection program. During the MOOD international workshop in Trento, she gave a captivating presentation about Spillover Surveillance and the One Health Response. Following this presentation, she was asked a few questions regarding her work, communicating practises between institutions and disease prevention in children by MOOD’s Working Package 8 OpenGeoHub’s communication experts.

Expert interviews from the MOOD Science Webinars

Every last Wednesday of the month, MOOD hosts a series of science webinars inviting two leading experts to share their research work on disease surveillance and modelling in data science, the impact of global warming on disease outbreaks, and the building of one-health systems across Europe and the world. With the MOOD science webinars, we aim at bringing the leading scientists and professionals in the field to discuss important recent discoveries and discuss implications of their work. Following this presentation, experts are asked a few questions by MOOD’s Working Package 8 OpenGeoHub’s communication experts.

Interview with Alexandre Hobeika

 

Alexandre Hobeika is a researcher in political science and sociology. He works on the coordination of actors for the governance of health risks, using the One Health approach. He has recently focused on Covid-19, antimicrobial resistance, and African swine fever. He presented the results of a socio-political study about the relationships between modelers and decision-makers during the Covid-19 crisis, at the national level in Finland and France. While these countries have been affected by and responded to the pandemic in different manners, many reported points of tension between science and policy have been similar: a narrow political framing and governance of the crisis, claims of political instrumentalization of science, fraught debates among scientists. Then he layed out possible avenues for a better preparation of the science-policy collaboration, based on the stakeholders’ feedbacks of these results. Following this presentation, he was asked a few questions by MOOD’s Working Package 8 OpenGeoHub’s communication experts.

Interview with Timothée Dub

 

Timothée Dub is a senior expert in the department of Health security of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). His activities mainly focus on vector-borne, emerging infectious and vaccine-preventable diseases, as well as outbreaks investigations. Timothée presented his latest work on a large-scale sectional study conducted in 2021 about the state-of-art of epidemic intelligence activities among national public and animal health agencies in Europe. The study was conducted as part of the MOnitoring Outbreaks for Disease surveillance in a Data science context (MOOD – Horizon-2020). The study will be published in 2023. Following this presentation, he was asked a few questions by MOOD’s Working Package 8 OpenGeoHub’s communication experts.