FCA briefing with leading health experts: Jodie McVernon and Ivo Mueller

15 August 2021

Words – April Pressler

Briefing with Q&A for FCA members to take place this Wednesday 18  August, 2021 from 10.30-11.30am – with two very highly-regarded health experts from the University of Melbourne, who are specialists in epidemiology and immunology: 

• Professor Jodie McVernon Director of Epidemiology at the Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne
• Professor Ivo Mueller, Joint Division Head, Population Health and Immunity, WEHI (previously known as the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)

This event will provide correspondents with the latest expert information regarding developments and current work on vaccines to counter COVID-19, the Delta variant and possibly other new variants as well.

Our guest speakers will each initially brief members and they will then be available to answer FCA members’ questions.
Please see below for brief bios

WHAT
FCA Briefing plus Q&A with Professor Jodie McVernon and Professor Ivo Mueller

WHEN
Wednesday 18 August 2021 from 10.30-11.30am (AEST)

RSVP: By 12 noon, 17 August 2021 to aprilp@ozemail.com.au 

Bios

Professor Jodie McVernon is a physician with subspecialty qualifications in public health and vaccinology. She has extensive expertise in clinical vaccine trials, epidemiologic studies and mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, gained at the University of Oxford, Health Protection Agency London and The University of Melbourne. Her work focuses on the application of a range of cross-disciplinary methodological approaches including mathematical and computational models, to synthesise insights from basic biology, epidemiological data and sociological research. These models advance understanding of the observed epidemiology of infectious diseases and inform understanding of optimal interventions for disease control.  Jodie’s PhD studies at Oxford, London on resurgence of Haemophilus influenza type b disease among vaccinated children directly informed UK immunisation policy. She returned to Australia in 2004 and went on to establish a Modelling and Simulation Unit at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, and since 2015, leads a nationally distributed National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Centre of Research Excellence in Infectious Diseases Modelling (www.prism.edu.au). Her unit’s work on influenza and pertussis has been translated into national and international infectious diseases policy through engagement with the Australian Government Office of Health Protection, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation and World Health Organization.

Professor Ivo Mueller is Co-Division Head, Population Health and Immunity, at WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research); Head, Malaria Parasites and Hosts Laboratory, Institut Pasteur, Paris; and Department of Medical Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne. His research centres on field-based studies of host-vector-parasite interactions, burden and transmission of different Plasmodium species, the treatment and prevention of malaria as well as in-depth studies of natural acquisition of immunity, host genetic modification of malaria risk and the effect of parasite diversity on the host response to malarial infections. A special focus of his work is on the biology, treatment, control and elimination of P. vivax malaria. Within the Australian Centre of Research Excellence in Malaria Elimination (ACREME) Ivo will lead projects based around understanding the biology of P. vivax relapses, parasites and host surveillance (in particular sero-surveillance approaches for P. vivax), in-depth epidemiological assessments and the development of mathematical models of P. vivax transmission.