BioWizard Blogs highlights the thoughts and perspectives of the world's leading scientists and physicians, and also gives an opportunity to passionate students and young professionals in having their opinions voiced in an open access setting. We look forward to bringing our users this original and interesting content, and here below is a list of our authors, beginning with our prominent contributors.
Paul A. Offit, MD
University of Pennsylvania
Paul Offit is a pediatrician specializing in infectious disease medicine, an internationally known expert on vaccines, immunology, and virology, the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Offit has published more than 120 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety and is the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine recently recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC. Dr. Offit has been a member of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) advisory committee on vaccines and is the co-author of three books, entitled Vaccines: What You Should Know (Wiley,2003, 3rd Edition), Breaking the Antibiotic Habit (Wiley,1999), and The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to Today’s Growing Vaccine Crisis (Yale University Press,2005).
Ellen Vitetta, PhD
University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center
Dr. Ellen Vitetta is Professor of Microbiology, Director of the Cancer Immunobiology Center, and holder of the Sheryle Simmons Patigian Distinguished Chair in Cancer Immunobiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Dr. Vitetta is an immunologist who does translational research. She has published hundreds of papers, edited several books, and is a co-inventor on 10 issued patents. She and her colleagues first described IgD on the surface of murine B cells, and she was a co-discoverer of Interleukin-4. Over the past two decades, she has developed antibody-based “biological missiles” to destroy cancer cells and cells infected with HIV. In 2001, Dr. Vitetta developed a vaccine against ricin which has been evaluated in clinical trials, and she was recently inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame by Governor Rick Perry.
M. Celeste Simon, PhD
University of Pennsylvania
M. Celeste Simon obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Rockefeller University. After completing her post-doctoral training with Joseph R. Nevis at Duke University and with Stuart H. Orkin at Harvard Medical School, she joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in November, 1992. At the University of Chicago, Dr. Simon was a member of the Departments of Medicine, and Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, and she was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure July 1, 1999. She joined the faculty of the of the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania on August 15, 1999 as an Associate Investigator. Dr. Simon is also a Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. Dr. Simon is an expert in the area of vascular biology and angiogenesis. She received a Young Investigator Award from the Cancer Foundation and is a member of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Bertalan Mesko, MD Candidate
University of Debrecen
Bertalan Meskó is a medical student at University of Debrecen, Hungary. He is most famous for helping lead the effort in “Medicine 2.0,” an effort by physicians and allied health professionals to hightlight the most innovative medical resources on the Internet. He is also an administrator on Wikipedia, where he coorrdinates several medical related projects, such as the Medical Genetics Wikiproject. His efforts in have been hightlighted in Nature Medicine, Medscape, and Cell, among others.
Jason Lott, MD Candidate
University of Pennsylvania
Jason Lott is a former Marshall Scholar at Oxford University and a current Gamble Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. His research interests include clinical ethics, health policy-making, and health economics. He has most recently worked as a researcher in the Evidence and Information for Policy Unit of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.
Neil Nathanson, MD
University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Neal Nathanson is currently Associate Dean for Global Health Programs, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. In July, 2003, Dr. Nathanson retired as Vice Provost for Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Nathanson has also served as Director of the Office of AIDS Research (OAR) at the National Institutes of Health responsible for coordinating the scientific, budgetary, legislative, and policy components of the NIH AIDS research programs, as well as for promoting collaborative research activities in domestic and international settings.
Dr. Nathanson was educated at Harvard University where he received both a BS and an MD degree, followed by clinical training in internal medicine at the University of Chicago and postdoctoral training in virology at the Johns Hopkins University. Later he joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Public Health, where he became Professor and head of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Epidemiology. He then moved to the University of Pennsylvania where he chaired the Department of Microbiology for 15 years. Dr. Nathanson is particularly known for his contributions to the field of viral pathogenesis, having edited the definitive text on this subject. He has also made significant contributions to the epidemiology of viral diseases.
