Professor Warwick Britton AO, FAHMS, PhD, MBBS, BScMed, FRACP, FRCPA, FRCP.

Warwick Britton is a clinical immunologist who leads the Tuberculosis Research Program at the Centenary Institute and is Emeritus Professor at the University of Sydney. Currently he is the Research Director for Sydney Local Health District, having been the Bosch Professor of Medicine and Professor of Immunology at the University of Sydney.

He has longstanding interests in the immunology of mycobacterial infections, development of novel vaccines and drugs against TB and respiratory infections, and the global control of TB and leprosy. In another life he worked in Nepal for 7 years in a rural hospital and established the Mycobacterial Research Lab at the Anandaban Leprosy Hospital, Kathmandu, that continues to drive research on the treatment and prevention of leprosy.

He will outline our current understanding of leprosy and the international program to eliminate the transmission of leprosy as the essential step towards eliminating this ancient disease in globally and in the Pacific.

Van-Mai Cao-Lormeau, PhD, HDR, is the Director of the laboratory of research on emerging viral diseases at the Institut Louis Malardé (ILM), Tahiti, French Polynesia.

She is leading research on mosquito-borne viruses at ILM since 2007. She has been the PI of many projects interested in the surveillance and epidemiology of arboviruses in the Pacific islands. In 2013, with her team she described in French Polynesia the largest Zika outbreak ever reported at that time, and with partners from the Pasteur Institute she demonstrated the link between Zika and Guillain-Barré Syndrome.

Since 2019, within the framework of a multidisciplinary research project called MATAEA, she enlarged the topic of her lab towards an integrated approach of health determinants in French Polynesia. Her team also contributed to the management of the COVID-19 crisis.

She is listed among the Highly Cited Researchers (Web of Science) since 2019. During her career, she has been member of various expert working groups at national (ArboFrance), regional (PPHSN) and international scale (ISARIC, ECDC, ICTV, WHO, ARES).

Associate Professor Gregor Devine came to Brisbane in 2013 to lead the Mosquito Control Laboratory. He is a medical entomologist with a strong background in operational research and research translation in disease endemic settings. He has over 15 years’ experience in South America, East Africa and North Queensland and has worked in academia and the government health sector. His work focuses on mosquito vectors of disease with an emphasis on control, surveillance, ecology and investigations of vectorial capacity.

Greg is on the steering committee of the New Ireland Malaria Alliance (NIPMA) that seeks malaria elimination in that region. He is Chair of the Commonwealth’s Aedes albopictus quarantine initiative in the Torres Strait and President of the Mosquito and Arbovirus Research Committee (MARC) that promotes and funds research on vector control and arbovirus surveillance. Greg has adjunct Associate Professorships at the University of Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology.

Professor Darren Gray, an infectious disease epidemiologist, is the Program Director of Population Health at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. He is the former Acting Director of the National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health/Research School of Population Health and Head of the Department of Global Health at the Australian National University.

He has been on a rapidly increasing research and leadership trajectory becoming Professor, Head of Department and Deputy Head of School within 10 years of completing his PhD; and then Head of School. He has also held 3 consecutive research fellowships (including a Griffith University Postdoc, ARC DECRA and an NHMRC CDF).

Prof Gray completed a Bachelor of Science (Microbiology) in 1999; Master of Science (Tropical Infectious Diseases) in 2001; Graduate Certificate in Public Health (Tropical Health) in 2003; and was awarded in 2008 a PhD (Population Health: Tropical Health) from the University of Queensland, Australia.

Christopher L. King, MD, PhD, MPH, is a professor of pathology and medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He is an infectious diseases clinician and sees patients at the Veterans Affairs Administration in Cleveland, Ohio. His active research areas include lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, malaria, and SARS-CoV2. His studies have occurred in East and West Africa and the South Pacific, particularly in Papua New Guinea, where he has conducted research studies for the past 30 years. He played a key role in developing the triple drug combination of ivermectin, diethylcarbamazine, and albendazole for mass drug administration to eliminate lymphatic filariasis. He collaborates with the PNG Institute of Medical Research and the National Department of Health to support programs for eliminating lymphatic filariasis and controlling other neglected tropical diseases in PNG.

Emma McBryde is an infectious diseases physician who did her PhD in mathematics, specifically Mathematical and Statistical modelling of disease transmission in hospitals. Since then, she has moved into modelling infectious diseases of global significance, including influenza, SARS and tuberculosis. Emma has led consultancies for AusAID, DFAT, the Commonwealth Department of Health and participated in Gates funded work on modelling to guide policy in tuberculosis. She is developing work on allocative efficiency for tuberculosis program development in partnership with the Global Fund and the World Bank.

Emma is based in the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University. She continues to collaborate with many researchers in Melbourne where previously to here current role she was Head of Epidemiology at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service where she had connections to the University of Melbourne and the Burnett institute. She is an elected official of the Australasian Tuberculosis Forum and an affiliate of the CRE in TB research.

Dr Satupaitea (Satu) Viali is a Specialist Physician and Cardiologist in Samoa. From 2002 to 2008 he was OUM’s Professor and Dean, and in 2007, he was on hand to congratulate OUM’s first graduates. Professor Viali rejoined OUM as Interim Dean of Samoa and the Asia Pacific and Professor of Medicine in May 2023. In addition to his new roles at OUM, Professor Viali is Professor of Medicine, National University of Samoa (NUS) School of Medicine; Cardiologist & Consultant Physician in the Medical Specialist & Cardiologist Practice, Tuloto, Togafuafua, Apia, Samoa; and Visiting Cardiologist and Consultant Physician in the Medical Ward, Cardiology Clinics, and the National Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease Program at TTM Hospital. He has published in peer-reviewed journals on rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease, non-communicable diseases, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and other topics. Dr. Viali earned both his Bachelor of Human Biology and his medical degree at the Auckland Medical School, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

John Woodford is a Queensland Infectious Diseases Physician and NHMRC emerging leadership fellow. He works as part of the Barber Clinical Malaria group at QIMR-Berghofer and in collaboration with the Laboratory of Malaria Immunology and Vaccinology at the United States National Institutes of Health. His research includes antimalarial drug and vaccine development including early phase and human challenge studies, and field studies in endemic regions.