Provisional Program

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Plenary Speakers

Professor Hajo Grundmann
Head of Department of Bacteriology
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment
The Netherlands

Dr Michael Yeaman
Professor of Medicine
Department of Medicine
Harbour UCLA-Medical Centre
United States of America

Dr Patrick Charles
Infectious Diseases Physician
Infectious Diseases and General Medicine
Austin Health
Australia

Pat Charles

Pat Charles is a physician in Infectious Diseases & General Medicine at Austin Health. He was the principal investigator on the Australian Community-Acquired Pneumonia Study, which involved the recruitment of nearly 900 patients with CAP, and looked at aetiology, treatment choices and outcomes, and severity assessment. He received his PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2008 for his thesis on this project. Results of the study have been published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Hajo Gundmann

Hajo Grundmann studied Sinology, Nursing and Human Medicine at the Universities of Bochum and Freiburg in Germany. He has specialised in Clinical Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Hygiene & Environmental Medicine and received his PhD at the University of Freiburg, Germany and an MSc in Epidemiology of Communicable Diseases at the London School of Hygiene. He worked clinically as a medical doctor at university hospitals in Freiburg, Berlin, and Nottingham and carried out extensive field studies in Taiwan, Venezuela and Tanzania. Currently, he is the Head of Department Bacteriology at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and Special Professor at the University of Nottingham, UK. He holds the Chair for Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at the University of Groningen. He is also the Project Leader of the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (EARSS) funded by the European Commission and the Dutch Ministry of Health at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. His major research interests are the molecular evolution, epidemiology, population dynamics and health impact of emerging antimicrobial resistance and health care associated infections, malaria and tuberculosis.

Michael Yeaman

Michael Yeaman was raised in Southern California prior to education and training at the University of New Mexico and UNM School of Medicine, respectively. He was recruited back to UCLA to finish his training by completing NIH and AHA Fellowships in Infectious Diseases / Immunobiology through the UCLA School of Medicine, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He was appointed to the Faculty of the UCLA School of Medicine in 1992. His research focuses on multiple integrated themes: 1) host-pathogen interactions; 2) immunobiology of innate immune effector molecules; 3) pattern recognition and response circuitries in infection and immunity; and 4) translational immunotherapeutic agents and strategies to address antibiotic-resistant infections and complex diseases. His early research focusing on Coxiella burnetii as a model intracellular pathogen led him to study molecular and cellular effectors of immune defense against infection. More recently, his research has focused on Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans as model prokaryotic and eukaryotic pathogens. His laboratory has contributed several advances to these fields. His team identified the modular platelet-derived peptides that simultaneously kill pathogens, and coordinate host cell-mediated immune responses. Examples include the kinocidins, or microbicidal chemokines. He discovered the structural and functional homology of S. aureus and C. albicans adhesins and invasins that enabled development of the first vaccine that affords cross kingdom protection against these escalating human pathogens, and discovery of the first fungal invasin. Recently, his laboratory discovered a multidimensional signature present in host defense effector proteins: the ??core motif. This unifying molecular pattern evolved from ancient archetypes first invented by microbes themselves, and recurs in host defense polypeptides in all kingdoms of life. Based on such advances, context-activated protides have been engineered and patented. These innovative molecules have been called "smart" anti-infectives, because they sense and activate in response to microbial virulence factors to target the very microbes that express them. Michael is Professor of Medicine, and serves as Vice-Chair for Research of the Department of Medicine at Harbor UCLA-Medical Center. He co-directs the Fellowship Training Program in Infectious Diseases at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, teaches microbial pathogenesis & host defense in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and he lectures locally, nationally and internationally. Michael currently serves as an appointed member of the NIH Host Interactions with Bacterial Pathogens study section, and as editorial board member or reviewer for leading journals. Collectively, these efforts illustrate his goals to contribute to the discovery and development of novel anti-infective and immunotherapeutic agents and strategies that address life-threatening infections due to antibiotic-resistant pathogens, and complex diseases potentially caused by pathogens yet to be determined.