The U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2 (NAMRU-2) concluded its Biannual Science Summit with a retreat hosted by the Programme in Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) at the Duke-National University of Singapore (NUS) Medical School.
The retreat held in late May, was led by EID's Professor Linfa Wang. EID partners with groups like NAMRU-2, local hospitals, government laboratories and biotech firms to develop new and effective methods for the treatment, prevention and control of novel and emerging pathogens.
It began with introductions from Wang, NAMRU-2's commanding officer Capt. Patrick Blair and NAMRU-2 science director Cmdr. Frederick Stell. They provided an overview of the 2018-2019 Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch Global Emerging Infections Surveillance (AFHSB-GEIS) request for proposals in the focus areas of Antimicrobial Resistant Infections, Enteric Infections, Febrile and Vector-borne Infections and Respiratory Infections.
Lt. Cmdr. Nicholas Martin, Deputy of the Defense Malaria Assistance Program (DMAP), presented a synopsis of DMAP, which was created to support and extend Department of Defense global research relevance to field, test, and evaluate malaria countermeasures for the U.S. warfighter.
Departmental briefs for NAMRU-2 Clinical Research and Field and Laboratory Research Departments were given by Capt. Dennis Faix and Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Hertz, who spoke about ongoing research centered at our laboratory in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with partners in Laos, Malaysia, and Vietnam, and throughout numerous field sites in the Southeast Asia region.
EID Professors Gavin Smith, Sheemei Lok, Ashley St. John, Laura Rivino, Danielle Anderson, and Raphael Zellweger delivered summaries of their current studies, covering zoonotic disease risk, use of cryo-electromicroscopy to understand virus structure, immunity to flaviviruses, characterization of immune cells in dengue virus infection, Duke-NUS's biocontainment facility, and capabilities of the Viral Research and Experimental Medicine Centre at Singhealth Duke (ViREMiCS).