Dr Peter Hotez | Dean, National School Of Tropical Medicine, Director, Texas Children's Hospital Center
Baylor College of Medicine

Dr Peter Hotez, Dean, National School Of Tropical Medicine, Director, Texas Children's Hospital Center, Baylor College of Medicine

Peter J. Hotez, M.D., Ph.D. is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also the Director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) and Texas Children’s Hospital Endowed Chair of Tropical Pediatrics.  He is also University Professor at Baylor University, and Fellow in Disease and Poverty at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
 
Dr. Hotez is an internationally-recognized physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development.  As head of the Texas Children’s CVD  he leads the only product development partnership for developing new vaccines for hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, and Chagas disease, and SARS/MERS, diseases affecting hundreds of millions of children and adults worldwide.  In 2006 at the Clinton Global Initiative he co-founded the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases to provide access to essential medicines for hundreds of millions of people 
 
He obtained his undergraduate degree in molecular biophysics from Yale University in 1980 (phi beta kappa), followed by a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Rockefeller University in 1986, and an M.D. from Weil Cornell Medical College in 1987.  Dr. Hotez has authored more than 400 original papers and is the author of the acclaimed Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases (ASM Press) and the recently released Blue Marble Health: An Innovative Plan to Fight Diseases of the Poor amid Wealth (Johns Hopkins University Press). 
 
Dr. Hotez served previously as President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and he is founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, and in 2011 he was awarded the Abraham Horwitz Award for Excellence in Leadership in Inter-American Health by the Pan American Health Organization of the WHO.  In 2014-16 he served in the Obama Administration as US Envoy, focusing on vaccine diplomacy initiatives between the US Government and countries in the Middle East and North Africa.  
 
In 2015, Prof. Hotez emerged as a major national thought leader on the Zika epidemic in the Western Hemisphere and globally.  He was among the first to predict Zika’s emergence in the US and is called upon frequently to testify before US Congress, and served on infectious disease task forces for two consecutive Texas Governors.  For these efforts in 2017 he was named by FORTUNE Magazine as one of the 34 most influential people in health care.
 
In addition, as both a vaccine scientist and autism Dad he has led national efforts to defend vaccines and to serve as an ardent champion of vaccines going up against a growing national “antivaxx” threat.   He appears frequently on television (including BBC, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC), radio, and in newspaper interviews (including the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal).

Appearances:



Pre-congress Workshops, April 6 @ 2:00

WORKSHOP L (AFTERNOON ONLY): COVID-19

Get up to speed on the Coronavirus outbreak, COVID-19: An unprecedented quick and coordinated responseThe WHO: “This outbreak is a test of solidarity -- political, financial and scientific. We need to come together to fight a common enemy that does not respect borders, ensure that we have the resources necessary to bring this outbreak to an end and bring our best science to the forefront to find shared answers to shared problems. Research is an integral part of the outbreak response.”Come together and join us to identify the urgent priorities for research, to mobilize, coordinate and align funding to enable the research needed to tackle this crisis and stop the outbreak, and commit with our experts how you can learn mechanisms for continuing scientific interactions and collaborations, now and beyond the congress.

Plenary, April 7 @ 14:30

Global health challenges: How far are we from eliminating treatable infectious diseases?

  • Bridging multiple technologies for holistic treatment strategies
  • What have we learnt from HIV, TB, malaria, NTDs?

Day 3, April 9 @ 14:20

Vaccine hesitancy, measles and policy

  • Have we lost ground?
  • Is elimination still viable?
  • Addressing the driving factors causing lower immunizations rates and outbreaks
last published: 05/Mar/20 10:35 GMT

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