Guest lecture by W. Ian Lipkin

CAMST and CMBN are happy to announce the following guest lecture:

Microbe hunting in the 21st century
Dr. W. Ian Lipkin
John Snow Professor of Epidemiology
Professor of Neurology and Pathology
Director, Center for Infection and Immunity
Director, WHO Collaborating Centre on Diagnostics, Surveillance and Immunotherapeutics for Emerging Infectious and Zoonotic Diseases
Director, Northeast Biodefense Center
Mailman School of Public Health and College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University, NY, USA

Friday 23 January 2009 at 1415
Seminar room A3.3067, Rikshospitalet

Recent advances in nucleic acid diagnostic methods have revolutionized microbiology by facilitating rapid, sensitive microbial surveillance and differential diagnosis of infectious diseases. Implementation of these methods may enable intervention when the prognosis is optimal for limiting replication, dissemination, transmission, morbidity and mortality. It may also reveal unappreciated links between infection and chronic diseases. In this lecture I will discuss mechanisms of microbial pathogenesis, routes to proving causation, and a staged strategy for surveillance and discovery. In reviewing the strengths and limitations of various analytical platforms, I will provide examples that illustrate how each platform can be used to investigate clinical problems.

Selected publications from Lipkin's CV:

• Lipkin WI (2008) Pathogen discovery. PLoS Pathog 4:e1000002.
• Palacios G, et al. (2008) A new arenavirus in a cluster of fatal transplant-associated diseases. N Engl J Med 358:991-998.
• Kondgen S, et al. (2008) Pandemic human viruses cause decline of endangered great apes. Curr Biol 18:260-264.
• Cox-Foster DL, et al. (2007) A metagenomic survey of microbes in honey bee colony collapse disorder. Science 318:283-287.
• Hornig M, Weissenbock H, Horscroft N, Lipkin WI (1999) An infection-based model of neurodevelopmental damage. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 96:12102-12107.

For further information, please contact Michael Koomey: johnk@imbv.uio.no, phone: 91394572.

Flyer (PDF)