Covid 19 Vaccine Update with Dr. Peter Hotez 

Moderator : Dr. Anudeep Jain

Dr. Peter J Hotez is the 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, Fellow in Disease and Poverty at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University, Faculty Fellow with the Hagler Institute for Advanced Studies at Texas A&M University, and Health Policy Scholar in the Baylor Center for Medical Ethics and Health 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 a team and product development partnership for developing new vaccines forhook worm infection, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis,Chagas disease, and SARS/MERS/SARS-2 coronavirus,diseases affecting hundreds of millions of children and adults worldwide, while championing access to vaccines globally and in the United States. In2006 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(phibeta kappa), followed by a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Rockefeller University in 1986,and an M.D.from WeilCornell Medical College in 1987.Dr.Hotez has authored more than 500original papers and is the author of four single-author books, including Forgotten People ,Forgotten Diseases(ASM Press);Blue Marble Health: An Innovative Plan to Fight Diseases of the Poor amid Wealth(Johns Hopkins University Press);Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism(Johns Hopkins University Press); and a forthcoming 2020 book on vaccine diplomacy in an age of war, political collapse, climate change and antiscience (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(Public Health Section)and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences(Public Policy Section). In2011,he was awarded the Abraham Horwitz Award for Excellence in Leadership in Inter-American Health by the Pan American Health Organization of the WHO.

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