TO INNOVATIONS

PLENARY SESSIONS
09.00 – 10.00 3 ARENA
PLENARY SESSION I CONFRONTING RESISTANCE
Dr. Thomas Matte, MD MPH
Chair(s): Janet Hemingway (United Kingdom), Catharina Boehme (Switzerland), Hon Stephen Mule (Kenya)
Thomas Matte Jennifer Gardy Janet Ginnard
The impact of air pollution on adult and child lung health
Dr. Thomas Matte has more than 25 years experience in environmental epidemiology, environmental
health practice Speaker: and policy Thomas development Matte at (United the national States and of local America) level. Tom is Vice joins President Vital Strategies for Environmental as the Health, Vital Strategies.
new Vice President for Environmental Health.
Dr. Thomas Matte has more than 25 years experience in environmental epidemiology, environmental health practice and policy development at the national and local
Prior to joining level. Vital Tom Strategies, joins Vital Tom Strategies served as Assistant the new Commissioner Vice President for Environmental Surveillance Health.
and Policy at Prior New to York joining City Department Vital Strategies, of Health Tom served and Mental as Assistant Hygiene Commissioner where he directed for Environmental studies of air Surveillance and Policy at New York City Department of Health and Mental
pollution, extreme Hygiene weather where and he directed other urban studies environmental of air pollution, hazards extreme and represented weather and the other Department urban environmental in hazards and represented the Department in applying public health
applying public health evidence to the City's cross-sectoral sustainability and climate resilience
evidence to the City's cross-sectoral sustainability and climate resilience initiatives. He previously served in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the US Centers for
initiatives. He previously served in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the US Centers for Disease
Disease Control and Prevention and as a medical epidemiologist with CDC's National Center for Environmental Health. Tom holds a medical degree from Albany Medical
Control and Prevention and as a medical epidemiologist with CDC's National Center for Environmental
Health. Tom College holds a and medical a Master degree of from Public Albany Health Medical from the College Harvard and School a Master of Public of Public Health Health where from he completed a residency in Occupational Medicine.
the Harvard School He can of be Public reached Health by email where at he tmatte@vitalstrategies.org
completed a residency in Occupational Medicine.
Changing course without rocking the boat: lessons learnt from implementing TB genomics in public health
He can be reached by email at tmatte@vitalstrategies.org
Speaker: Jennifer Gardy (Canada) is Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia; and Canada Research Chair, Public Health Genomics.
Dr. Jennifer Gardy is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, where she holds a Canada Research Chair in Public Health Genomics. Her research
examines how genome sequencing can be used to answer questions in public health, particularly around reconstructing communicable disease transmission patterns.
In 2011, her group was the first to apply genomics to a large outbreak of TB, and she has since explored how genomic data can be used to find missing cases in a TB
outbreak and time infection events to help declare TB outbreaks over.
British Columbia, Canada is a low-incidence setting with a centralised TB laboratory and client registry – the ideal setting to implement whole genome sequencing as
a tool to understand TB epidemiology. We’ve now sequenced every culture-positive, clustered case of TB diagnosed in the province over a ten-year period, including
several large outbreaks, and our experience has shown that frontline public health professionals are excited about genomics’ potential, even if they don’t understand the
technical basis of the approach. Here, I’ll briefly highlight some of the ways we’ve used genomics to answer important questions about TB transmission in BC, and what
it was about each vignette that made the story a success from both the genomics and the frontline public health perspective.
Funding innovation to confront resistance
Speaker: Janet Ginnard (Switzerland) is Team Lead, Strategy, UNITAID.
Janet Ginnard is the Strategy Team Lead at UNITAID. She is responsible for the development of new areas for UNITAID investment, with an emphasis on market analysis
and using strategic partnerships to optimise access to appropriate drugs, diagnostics, and preventive tools.
Janet has 15 years’ international work experience in health, with a wide range of roles spanning public health and private-sector healthcare, focused on strategy
development and technical project management. Prior to UNITAID, she worked at the World Health Organization, facilitating access to safe, reliable and appropriate
diagnostic technologies. In private-sector consulting work, Janet focused on pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement issues. She advised on market access
optimisation for most of the world’s 25 largest pharmaceutical companies, and led targeted strategy development for boutique pharma and specialised biotechnology
companies. She started her career at Chiron Corporation (now Novartis), focusing on validation and quality assurance of diagnostic products to test blood
for HIV and Hepatitis C virus.
She has a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge, Judge School of
Business, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
AWARD PRESENTATION THE KAREL STYBLO PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE
The Karel Styblo Public Health Prize — awarded by The Union, acknowledges a health worker (physician or lay person)
or a community organisation for contributions to tuberculosis control or lung health over a period of ten years or more.