FINAL PROGRAM - EpiSouth

Plenary Lectures
14th International Congress on Infectious Diseases
Jarbas Barbosa da Silva, BRAZIL
Emerging Infectious Diseases in Latin America
Dr. Jarbas Barbosa da Silva Jr. has been Manager of the Health Surveillance, Disease Prevention and Control
Area of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) since 10 January 2007. The HSD area is responsible
for coordinating regional activities on surveillance, prevention and control of communicable and noncommunicable
diseases; health information and analysis; and veterinarian public health.
Dr. Barbosa received his degree in medicine from the Federal University of Pernambuco. He later received
specialized credentials in public health and epidemiology from the National School of Public Health at the
Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), Brazil. He received a Master’s degree and later a Doctoral degree in
public health from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) in São Paulo state, Brazil.
Dr. Barbosa began his professional career in the public health sector in 1982, working for the Secretariat of
Health for the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. In 1987, he became Coordinator for the Program on Sexually
Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS in this state. In 1993, he was appointed Secretary of Health of the
municipality of Olinda, and in 1995 Secretary of Health for the State of Pernambuco. In these positions he
was the coordinator of the entire municipality health system and the state health system, respectively.
From 1997 to 2003, Dr. Barbosa da Silva worked as Director of the National Center for Epidemiology
(CENEPI) in Brasilia, Brazil, in the Ministry of Health. In this position he was the national coordinator of
the epidemiological surveillance system. In 2003 he was nominated as the first Secretary of Public Health
Surveillance, a new branch created in the Brazilian MoH that joined the areas of epidemiological surveillance
and the prevention and control of diseases programmes. In the second semester of 2007 he was appointed
as Executive Secretary (Vice Minister) of the Ministry of Health.
Dr. Barbosa is author and co-author of articles, books and chapters on several public health and
epidemiological matters.
Edward H. Kass Lecture
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, FRANCE
The Discovery of HIV: An Example of Translational Research on Response to an Emerging Epidemic
Françoise Barre-Sinoussi, PhD, is the acting Director of the “Regulation of Retroviral Infections” Unit at the
Institut Pasteur in Paris. She has been involved in retrovirology research since the early 1970’s and is recognized
for her contributions to HIV/AIDS research, in particular as the first author of the publication that
reported in 1983 the discovery of a retrovirus, later named HIV, in a patient at risk for AIDS. In 1988, she
became responsible for her own laboratory at the Institut Pasteur and initiated research programs on viral and
host determinants of HIV/AIDS pathogenesis.
Between 1988 and 1998, Dr. Barré-Sinoussi has been involved in collaborative programs on HIV vaccine
research using primate models. Today, the research programs of her team are focused on regulations of HIV/
SIV infection (intracellular restrictions of HIV-1infection and innate immunity, in particular regulations of
T cell activation resulting from the NK-dendritic cell interplay).
Dr. Barré-Sinoussi is author and co-author of more than 220 original publications and more than 120 articles
and book reviews. She has been invited to speak at more than 250 International meetings and/or conferences.
She has been (and is still) a member of a number of scientific committees in France and elsewhere,
including scientific committees of several International AIDS Conferences. She has received 10 awards, both
nationally and internationally for her contributions to HIV/AIDS research. Dr. Barré-Sinoussi shared the 2008
Nobel Prize in Medicine with Dr. Luc Montagnier for their discovery of HIV.
Along with her research activities, since the early 80’s Dr. Barré-Sinoussi has been strongly involved in
promoting integration between HIV/AIDS research and actions in resource-limited countries, in particular
through the Institut Pasteur International Network and the coordination of the ANRS research programs in
Cambodia and Vietnam, in accordance with her strong commitment to building capacity, training and technology
transfers on site in Africa and Asia.
18 ~ Final Program