Biography
Dr. Nassiri is a former Associate Dean of Global Health at the Michigan State University (MSU). He also served as MSU director of Institute of International Health. He is currently Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Professor of Family and Community Medicine, and, lecturer in Global Health, Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine. He currently works on international public health issues relating to chronic diseases and has expertise in global health. He has made contributions in various fields of medical sciences including clinical investigation and health education. On the basis of his extensive experience and expertise in chronic infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, TB as well as antimicrobial resistance and human gut microbiome, he developed clinical research programs in Brazil, South Africa, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Mexico. He had served as editorial board member for the journal of HIV and AIDS Review. He is currently on editorial board member for AIDS Patient Care and STDs. Prof. Nassiri has delivered seminar presentations on Tropical Medicine, HIV/AIDS, TB, Global Health and public health interventions in numerous national and international conferences and workshops. He is internationally recognized for his work in the areas of building effective international partnerships particularly in global health, community health, clinical care capacity building, and technical assistance mechanism. He is the founder of Michigan State University Osteopathic and Primary Health Clinic in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. He has developed academic and research partnership programs with Federal University of Para Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belem, Brazil.
Research Interest
His research interests are Clinical Pharmacology of HIV/AIDS & TB, human gut microbiome, antibiotic resistance, prevention and control of infectious diseases, neglected tropical diseases, community health, global health, socio-ethical determinants of health, and community-based public health interventions. In collaboration with his Brazilian colleagues, he conducts research in the eastern Brazilian Amazon population on incidence and prevalence of HIV, TB, Hepatitis C, HPV, and antimicrobial resistance.
Biography
Dr. Qingzhong Kong graduated with B.S. and M.S degrees in Biochemistry at Nanjing University, China, in 1987 and 1990, respectively. In 1996, he completed a Ph.D. in Molecular Virology at the University of Massachusetts. From 1996 to 2000, he was a Research Associate in Molecular Immunology at Yale University, after which he joined the Department of Pathology at Case Western Reserve University as an assistant professor. Dr. Kong is currently a tenured Associate Professor of Pathology at Case Western Reserve University, where he also holds secondary appointments at the Department of Neurology and the National Center for Regenerative Medicine.
Research Interest
His laboratory focuses on prion diseases, functions of cellular prion protein, and muscle stem cells, including four main research areas: (1) etiology of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD) in humans; (2) public health risks of animal prions (Chronic Wasting Disease of elk and deer, atypical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy of cattle, and Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy) and animal modeling of various human prion diseases (especially CJD); (3) the roles of the normal cellular prion protein in the biology and pathology of skeletal muscles and brain; and (4) muscle stem cells. His lab has created dozens of transgenic mouse lines for the above research areas, some of which are inducible by doxycycline or conditional when used with Cre recombinase expressing mice.
Biography
Yiping Li, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Virology, Institute of Human Virology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), Guangzhou, China. Dr. Yiping Li received Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from China Agricultural University, Beijing, China. From 2003 to 2004 and 2006 to 2007, Dr. Li worked as a visiting scholar, project researcher, and postdoctoral researcher in the National Veterinary Institute, Technical University of Denmark (previous Royal Danish Veterinary Institute). In 2005, Dr. Li pursued hepatitis C virus (HCV) research in the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), University of Saskatchewan, Canada. To continue HCV research, in February 2008 Dr. Li joined the Copenhagen Hepatitis C Program (CO-HEP), Hvidovre Hospital and Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. After trainings as a postdoc and senior investigator, Dr. Li took a professor position in Zhongshan School of Medicine, SYSU in January 2014
Research Interest
Dr. Yiping Li’s research interests are in the infection and immunity of HCV. To HCV research, Dr. Li has made important contributions, which have included the discoveries on the host RNA insertion-mediated viral resistance to antiviral effect of miR-122 antagonism, the development of novel full-length infectious culture systems for HCV genotypes 1a, 2a and 2b, as well as chimeric culture systems for HCV genotypes 3a, 4a, 5a, and 6a. Dr. Li’s works have led to publications on well-known journals, such as PNAS, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, PLoS Pathogens, Virology. In addition, Dr. Li also worked on animal viruses and Campylobacter. Dr. Li’s research activities have produced 25 publications, 3 U.S. patent applications and 21 conference abstracts; these have included 12 first author publications (served also as corresponding author in 3 publications) and 5 oral presentations out of 13 first author abstracts in outstanding conferences.
