Joseph Fair | |
---|---|
Alma mater | Tulane University, Loyola University |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Virology |
Institutions | Metabiota, Inc., NBC |
Joseph Fair is a virologist and former vice president and director of research and development for Metabiota, Inc. [1] [2] Since March 2020 he has been a science contributor for the American television network NBC. [3]
After briefly attending the University of Kentucky, Fair received his bachelor's degree in biology from Loyola University New Orleans, and his M.P.H. and Ph.D. in molecular biology from Tulane University. [4]
Fair is known for his work with hemorrhagic fevers notably Ebola and Lassa fever (LHF), [1] as well as the tracking and biosurveillance of infectious diseases. [1]
From April 2008 to April 2014, Fair was a corporate vice-president at Metabiota, Inc. (formerly Global Viral Forecasting, Inc.). He then worked as a consulting advisor to Fondation Mérieux. [2] From 2015 to 2017 he was a chief adviser in Global Health Surveillance & Diagnostics for MRIGlobal and a senior fellow in global health security at Pennsylvania State University. [5] In 2018 he worked with International Medical Corps. [6] Since January 2018 he has been a senior fellow at the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University. [5]
In 2020, Fair was hospitalized with COVID-19-like symptoms shortly after taking a crowded flight, despite wearing a mask and gloves, and theorized that he caught the virus via his eyes as a result of not wearing goggles. [7] [8] Later PCR and antibody testing, however, revealed Fair did not have COVID; the cause of his illness remains unknown. [9] [10]
Sir Peter Karel, Baron Piot, is a Belgian-British microbiologist known for his research into Ebola and AIDS.
Viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are a diverse group of animal and human illnesses. VHFs may be caused by five distinct families of RNA viruses: the families Filoviridae, Flaviviridae, Rhabdoviridae, and several member families of the Bunyavirales order such as Arenaviridae, and Hantaviridae. All types of VHF are characterized by fever and bleeding disorders and all can progress to high fever, shock and death in many cases. Some of the VHF agents cause relatively mild illnesses, such as the Scandinavian nephropathia epidemica, while others, such as Ebola virus, can cause severe, life-threatening disease.
Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a viral disease. Symptoms of CCHF may include fever, muscle pains, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, and bleeding into the skin. Onset of symptoms is less than two weeks following exposure. Complications may include liver failure. Survivors generally recover around two weeks after onset.
Globalization, the flow of information, goods, capital, and people across political and geographic boundaries, allows infectious diseases to rapidly spread around the world, while also allowing the alleviation of factors such as hunger and poverty, which are key determinants of global health. The spread of diseases across wide geographic scales has increased through history. Early diseases that spread from Asia to Europe were bubonic plague, influenza of various types, and similar infectious diseases.
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Leslie Lobel was an American-born Israeli virologist and physician at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, where he was a leading researcher attempting to develop a vaccine and cure for infectious diseases, primarily Ebola. He was Chair of their Department of Virology and Developmental Genetics, and Vice Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics.
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Jean-Paul Joseph Gonzalez is a French virologist. He graduated from the Medical School of Bordeaux University France.
Erica Ollmann Saphire is an American structural biologist and immunologist and a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. Her research investigates the structural biology of viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever such as Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, Bundibugyo, and Lassa. She was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2008.
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Neil Morris Ferguson is a British epidemiologist and professor of mathematical biology, who specialises in the patterns of spread of infectious disease in humans and animals. He is the director of the Jameel Institute, and of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, and head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Vice-Dean for Academic Development in the Faculty of Medicine, all at Imperial College London.
Michael Joseph Ryan is an Irish epidemiologist and former trauma surgeon, specialising in infectious disease and public health. He is executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme, leading the team responsible for the international containment and treatment of COVID-19. Ryan has held leadership positions and has worked on various outbreak response teams in the field to eradicate the spread of diseases including bacillary dysentery, cholera, Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever, Ebola, Marburg virus disease, measles, meningitis, relapsing fever, Rift Valley fever, SARS, and Shigellosis.
Maria DeJoseph Van Kerkhove is an American infectious disease epidemiologist. With a background in high-threat pathogens, Van Kerkhove specializes in emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and is based in the Health Emergencies Program at the World Health Organization (WHO). She is the technical lead of COVID-19 response and the head of emerging diseases and zoonosis unit at WHO.
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Metabiota is a San Francisco startup that compiles data from around the world to predict disease outbreaks. The company is a partner with USAID's PREDICT and PREVENT programs. In the early months of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, Metabiota and BlueDot independently demonstrated the capabilities of computer analytics to map the future spread of the virus between countries.
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