Anavaj Sakuntabhai, PhD

Dr. Anavaj Sakuntabhai Func3onal Gene3cs of Infec3ous Diseases Unit Ins3tut Pasteur, Paris Title: “Dengue research Framework for ResisAng Epidemics in Europe (DENFREE)” Friday, July 25, 2014 Karp Amphitheatre | Room 501, 11:00 AM Goodman Cancer Research centre “Dengue has become a major interna3onal public health concern, one of the most important arthropod‐borne diseases. Over the past decade the number of outbreaks has escalated and the popula3on at risk is increasing yearly. It has recently been es3mated that there are 390 million dengue infec3ons every year of which 96 million are symptoma3c. Rising temperatures and global climate change may lead to the expansion of the range of major mosquito vectors into new areas, extension of the transmission season in areas with currently circula3ng dengue virus and increase in the mosquito spp. vectorial capacity. Human migra3on and interna3onal travel are constantly introducing new vectors and pathogens into novel geographic areas. The poten3al threat of dengue virus (DENV) invasion of con3nental Europe has recently been underlined by cases of autochthonous dengue in southern France. These cases bear testament to the capacity of local Aedes albopictus mosquito vector to transmit the virus. This Asian 3ger mosquito is the major poten3al vector of DENV in Europe, although the most important vector world‐wide, Aedes aegyp8, was iden3ﬁed in Madeira Island, Portugal in October 2005. A major epidemic occurred in Madeira last year. In 2011, the European Commission launched a call under the 7th Framework Programme with the 3tle of “Comprehensive control of Dengue fever under changing clima3c condi3ons”. Within this framework, the EU awarded a total of approximately €18 million to three consor3a. The DENFREE consor3um is one of the three, coordinated by the Ins3tut Pasteur, Paris. The main objec3ve of the DENFREE project is to focus on ﬁnding key factors determining dengue transmission and dynamics in order to develop new tools and strategies for controlling dengue transmission. Inherent in our program is the belief that improved surveillance and diagnosis of the asymptoma3c dengue carriers will contribute to eﬀec3ve interven3on, especially during early stages of pathogen invasion into a naïve region. The hospital‐based surveillance is inadequate – too liale and too late. Implementa3on of such a surveillance strategy requires, however, a much improved understanding of what characterizes asymptoma3c infec3ons and what epidemiological role they may play. Can they infect mosquitoes? Is the dura3on of infec3on diﬀerent from symptoma3c episodes? In order to understand the complex interplay among viral, human, vector and environmental factors in dengue transmission and development of severe dengue disease, we develop a program to bring in exper3se from diﬀerent disciplines in dengue research working on the same ﬁeld based study. Each par3cipant contributed the best data concerning his/her own exper3se using samples from the same individuals with well characterized clinical and epidemiological data. This mul3disciplinary and complementary approach will allow each par3cipant to access to data in other relevant ﬁelds and analyze them together. The resul3ng mass of well‐characterized biological samples will enable development of the more fundamental aspects of dengue research that are necessary for advances in vaccine and an3‐viral drug development, the genera3on of descrip3ve and advanced warning epidemiological models and novel diagnos3c tools. DENFREE will achieve answers to these ques3ons by genera3ng speciﬁc tools that will be validated in dengue endemic zones and that can then be implemented both in the endemic zones and in zones currently free of DENV, including Europe”. LOCATION: GCRC, Room #501, 11:00 AM HOSTED BY: Dr. Mark Lathrop, Scien3ﬁc Director at McGill University and Genome Quebec Innova3on Centre

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