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KEY DEADLINES
Abstract Submission Deadline: CLOSED
Early Bird Registration Deadline: CLOSED
Accommodation Deadline: CLOSED
Standard Registration Deadline: CLOSED
Dr. Alexandra King is a member of Nipissing First Nation (Ontario). She is the Cameco Chair in Indigenous Health and Wellness at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), co-lead of Pewaseskwan (the Indigenous Wellness Research Group) and an Internist with the Saskatchewan Health Authority. She supports Indigenous communities in improving health and wellness outcomes, bringing leadership in culturally safe and responsive research and care.
Alexandra serves on many initiatives including the Canadian Association for HIV Research, the Canadian Network on Hepatitis C, the CIHR Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health Advisory Board and the Indigenous People’s Engagement and Research Council (IPERC).
At USask College of Medicine she is a Sex and Gender Champion and she supported the establishment of the Department of Indigenous Health and Wellness.
Alexandra supervises graduate students at Simon Fraser University and USask, focusing on research with Indigenous people in areas including sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections, land-based healing, health determinants and justice health.
Are we compromising cure? Examining the elimination agenda against post-cure life and human rights
Associate Professor Kate Seear is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and a Principal Research Fellow in the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University. She is also a practising solicitor. Kate has a multidisciplinary background in sociology, gender and law. She is the author of four books and more than 70 academic publications, exploring topics such as: the links between alcohol, other drugs, stigma and the law; hepatitis C, harm reduction and the law; and drugs, gender, and human rights. Her most recent book is Law, drugs and the making of addiction: Just habits (London: Routledge) and was the winner of the UK’s prestigious Socio-Legal Studies Association’s History and Theory book prize. Kate is also the Co-Editor of the journal Contemporary Drug Problems.
Challenges in Prevention and Care of Hepatitis B in sub-Saharan Africa: learning from people affected and research
Gilles Wandeler is an attending physician at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Bern University Hospital, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern. He obtained a master’s degree in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and started his research career within the framework of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study. He leads numerous projects on HIV and viral hepatitis infections and currently holds a Professorship from the Swiss National Science Foundation to study HBV functional cure in sub-Saharan Africa. He’s a member of the Scientific Board of the Swiss HIV cohort Study and the Chairman of the Steering Committee of EuroSIDA. He teaches at the Universities of Bern, Basel, Bordeaux, Paris and Barcelona.
First Nations Health Equity in viral hepatitis and HIV; are we doing enough?
Professor James Ward is a Pitjantjatjara and Nukunu man, an infectious diseases epidemiologist and a national leader in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research. He is currently the Director of the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health at The University of Queensland.
Holding various roles over the last 25 years in Aboriginal public health policy for both government and non-government organisations, in urban regional and remote communities he has built a national program of research in the epidemiology and prevention of infectious diseases, with a particular focus on STIs, HIV and viral hepatitis in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Professor Ward has previously worked at the Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Baker IDI in Alice Springs and the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. He has served on numerous national and international committees including the Communicable Diseases Network of Australia, the Australian National Council on Alcohol and Drugs, the CDNA COVID-19 Working Group and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander COVID-19 Taskforce. He has over 140 publications and leads several large scale public health and infectious diseases studies.
Strategies for service integration and person-centred care for achieving HIV/viral hepatitis coinfection elimination in light of new WHO Global health sector strategies on HIV/viral hepatitis/STIs
Dr Doherty is the Director of the Department of Global HIV, Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections Programmes (HHS) at the World Health Organization (WHO).
Appointed on the 1 February 2020, Dr Doherty has more than 25 years of experience working in HIV and infectious diseases, including leading WHO’s normative and programmatic work focusing on expanding HIV treatment to all and reducing inequalities in access to the most effective anti-retroviral drugs for people living with HIV. Dr Doherty is a trained epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist and has published over 110 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School and her MPH and PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health. Under her leadership as Director, HHS department, the department works to maintain and expand global efforts to end AIDS and the epidemics of hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections by 2030 with a strong emphasis on service integration and strengthening primary health care within the framework of UHC, while focusing on vulnerable populations and countries with the highest burden.
Dr Colledge-Frisby is an early-career researcher at the National Drug Research Institute, and an honorary researcher at the Burnet Institute and National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. Her PhD was conferred in June 2023 and focused on the epidemiology of clinical harms that are over-represented in people who inject drugs. Her thesis examined the global prevalence of overdose, mental health disorders, and injecting frequency among people who inject drugs, and examined the epidemiology of injecting-related bacterial infections and injuries that have occurred among people who inject drugs in Australia. Her research has since focused on understanding injecting-related bacterial infections, harm reduction service capabilities, and overdose prevention.
Invited speaker
In addition to being recognised as a leading clinician in the management of hepatitis B, Ben serves on a range of national and international committees relating to viral hepatitis clinical management and public health responses, including the national Ministerial Advisory Committee on Blood Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmissible Infections (MACBBVS), the Hepatitis B Expert Resource Panel for the WHO Western Pacific Region, and the Global Validation Advisory Committee (GVAC) for the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B, Global Hepatitis Programme, WHO. He has over 100 peer reviewed publications relating to viral hepatitis, and in 2015 was named the inaugural Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis at the Doherty Institute.
Associate Professor Thomas Tu is a molecular biologist and leads a research group at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research in the Storr Liver Centre (Sydney, Australia), where his team focuses on persistent forms of the Hepatitis B virus (covalently closed circular DNA and integrated HBV DNA) and develops methods to measure and eliminate them.
He is particularly passionate about developing an HBV cure and mitigating the associated liver cancer, as he himself lives with chronic Hepatitis B. This provides him with unique perspectives on the disease as a researcher, patient, and advocate. He has won multiple awards for his research and outreach, most recently the 2022 Young Tall Poppy Science award.
A/Prof Tu is President of the Australian Centre for Hepatitis Virology, the premier Australian society for hepatitis virus researchers. He is also the founder and Director of HepBCommunity.org (a global support network for people affected with HBV), guiding people through their HBV diagnosis, and linking them with trustworthy scientific and medical information. Recently he has established Hepatitis B Voices Australia, an advocacy group run by the affected community.
Invited speaker
Peter Vickerman is a Professor in infectious disease modelling at the University of Bristol. He has 25 years’ experience in infectious disease modelling. His research focuses on the use of mathematical modelling to help understand the transmission of different infectious diseases and impact and cost-effectiveness of prevention measures. Specific expertise focuses on the transmission of HIV, HCV and other STIs amongst different high–risk groups including female sex workers, men who have sex with men and injecting drug users. He has extensive experience of conducting collaborative research with organisations in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and the UK. He has contributed to numerous international advisory groups (including WHO, U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. National Institute of Health, NICE Public Health guidance committees and Public Health England).
Judith Feinberg, MD, FACP, FIDSA, is the Dr. E.B. Flink Vice Chair of Medicine for Research and Professor of both Medicine/Infectious Diseases and Behavioral Medicine & Psychiatry at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. After a long career in HIV/AIDS research, she was recruited to WVU in late 2015 to develop a research program that focuses on the intersection of the injection drug use epidemic and its associated medical (overdose) and infectious complications (HIV, hepatitis B and C, endocarditis). Dr. Feinberg has been Chair of the national boards of both the HIV Medicine Association and the American Academy of HIV Medicine. She currently holds 3 federal (NIH) grants for studies in the management of substance use disorder and the complications of injection drug use, with a particular focus on hepatitis and HIV. Dr. Feinberg is committed to turning the tide on these diseases that are devastating West Virginia.
Carrie Fowlie is the CEO of Hepatitis Australia, the national peak body representing interests of people in Australia impacted by viral hepatitis and the state and territory community hepatitis organisations. Our mission is to end viral hepatitis. Carrie has two decades of peak body, policy and social justice experience. Her collaborative work has resulted in policy, programs and law reform consistent with the evidence and the priorities of her constituencies.
Dr. Marina Klein is a Professor of Medicine at McGill University, in the Division of Infectious Diseases/Chronic Viral Illnesses Service where she is Research Director and leads the MI4 Clinical Research Platform. She is National co-director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) – Canadian HIV Trials Network (CTN) and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Clinical and Epidemiologic Studies of Chronic Viral Infections in Vulnerable Populations. Dr Klein is leading “Métropoles sans Hep C“, an innovative community-focused program aiming to make Montreal the first city in North America to eliminate HCV.
Kelly is the Director of Sexual Health and Blood Borne Viruses for NT Health. Her PhD research aims to improve the cascades of care for people living with CHB, through strong partnerships, data linkage, allocation to care pathways, systems improvement, CQI and health education and capacity building through the co-design, development, delivery and evaluation of training for and with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workforce. She is privileged to live and work on Larrakia land.
Stefan Baral is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Stefan completed his certification in Community Medicine as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and Family medicine with the Canadian Council of Family Physicians and provides primary care services in shelters serving people experiencing homelessness.
Stefan co-directs Center For AIDS Research (CFAR) Implementation Science core, Mid-Atlantic CFAR Consortium (MACC+) Implementation Science Consultation Hub, and the Implementation Science concentration of the DrPH at Johns Hopkins and has worked to increase coherence in the methods and metrics of HIV-related implementation research. Through his role as the Director of the Key Populations Program in the Center for Public Health and Human Rights, Stefan has led HIV epidemiology and implementation research focused on characterizing the epidemiology of HIV and effective HIV prevention, treatment, and care approaches for gay men and other men who have sex with men, transgender women, people who use drugs, and female sex workers across Western and Central, and Southern Africa.
Professor Margaret Hellard AM is a Deputy Director at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne Australia.
Margaret’s principal research interests are in preventing the transmission and improving the management of blood borne viruses; the ultimate aim being to eliminate these infections.
Margaret is a member of numerous advisory committees including Co-Chairing the WHO STAC on HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs.
Morkor Newman Owiredu is a public health physician, currently leading the work on Triple Elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV, syphilis and HBV, and women’s health in HIV, as well as leads (ad interim) the Treatment and Care team of the Global HIV, Hepatitis and STI programs WHO Geneva. She formerly worked in the HIV response and reproductive health departments of the WHO African Regional and Ghana Country Offices and has extensive experience in communicable disease, particularly the HIV and STI responses, as well as reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health and nutrition programs.
Dr Rachel Devi, a Public Health Specialist from the Fiji Medical and Dental Council, holding a Masters in International Public health from the University of Sydney, and a Medical Doctor by profession, is currently managing, Maternal, New-Born, Child, Reproductive, Adolescent and Sexual health in Fiji. Has worked with the Ministry of Health and Medical Services for the past 15 years and a few years with the University of Sydney as Project Manager for the Watersheds Intervention for Systems Health (WISH Fiji) Project, and returned to the Ministry of Health during the Hype of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Led Fiji’s COVID-19 Vaccination Program under her current Portfolio as Head of Family Health.