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Suggested Topics for Symposium Proposals

Contents:
Pandemic Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, and Resilience
Basic Science Advances in Tropical Medicine
Biomedical Engineering and Information Technology point of care Advances to Confront Disease in LMICs
Clinical Tropical Medicine
Diarrhea and Bacterial Illness
Entomology and Ectoparasite-Borne Diseases
Global Health
Intestinal and Tissue Helminths
Measures for Control and Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases
Malaria
One Health
Pneumonia, Respiratory Infections and Tuberculosis
Protozoal Diseases (non-malaria)
Virology
Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Environmental Health (WaSH-E)



Pandemic Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, and Resilience: Global Health security and emerging infection preparedness and response(s) with focus on COVID-19 reflection and next steps; Assessment of infectious disease burden in conflict, refugee and natural or other man-made disaster settings; New approaches and tools to optimize responses, especially in conflict zones; Modeling and prediction of potential hotspots, including techniques such as weather mapping, and integrated human and animal surveillance; Successes and challenges in disease eradication; Sampling strategies, in particular depth versus breadth; Challenges in timely data sharing.
 
Basic Science Advances in Tropical Medicine: Single cell biology of host responses; Protective Immunity and control through vaccination or immunotherapy; Metabolic regulation; Novel vaccine platforms; Model systems for study of human tropical infectious disease (including humanized mice, organs on a chip, “dirty” mice); Gene editing and CRISPR-Cas9; Microbiomes; Novel molecular methods to predict drug efficacy; Artificial intelligence/machine learning to identify therapeutic targets and/or develop new therapeutic agents; Mechanistic study of the host response across microbes.
 
Biomedical Engineering and Information Technology point of care Advances to Confront Disease in LMICs: Genetic and genomic methods applicable in field settings; Novel diagnostic approaches, including but not limited to multiplex, real-time, rapid tests; Novel data collection/analysis and big data platforms in tropical medicine, including but not limited to integrated analytics to create meaningful visualizations of routine health data and use of routine data to drive decision making across health systems; Artificial intelligence and machine learning; Telemedicine in LMICs/for travelers’ health; Epigenetics and tropical medicine; Metagenomics applied to tropical and infectious diseases; Code-a-thons and other crowd-sourced methods applied to tropical medicine.
 
Clinical Tropical Medicine: Clinical burden and relevance of antimicrobial resistance; Comorbidities (e.g., multimorbidity, especially involving malaria, HIV, COVID-19, tuberculosis, helminths, protists, anemia, diabetes); Cancer, heart disease, malnutrition and other non-communicable diseases in LMICs, and interaction with communicable diseases; Real-world data efforts in addressing COVID-19 with other infectious diseases; Trauma, emergency, surgical, nursing, and intensive care medicine in LMICs; Maternal and neonatal health; Novel therapeutics, including immunotherapeutics; Development and evaluation of diagnostic tests and algorithms; Human challenge infection models; Clinical toxicology in LMICs; Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM); Dental conditions and oral tropical diseases; Precision tropical medicine; HIV co-infection and pathogenesis with other tropical diseases, including SARS CoV2; Pre- and posttravel assessment of persons with HIV/AIDS, including vaccines; Impact of HIV prevention therapies in global settings and on NTD incidence; Clinical practice interactive sessions targeting earlycareer practitioners (CTropMed focus).
 
Diarrhea and Bacterial Illness: Diarrheal burden in adults; Control of cholera, typhoid and noroviruses, including through novel vaccines; Neglected and emerging bacterial diseases (e.g., Hansen’s disease, Buruli ulcer).
 
Entomology and Ectoparasite-Borne Diseases: Tick-borne diseases, including geographical distribution, disease burden, epizootiology, and ecology; Novel vector control tools and strategies; Local measures of risk with predictive value for human cases; Factors responsible for geographic expansion of disease vectors; Socioeconomic determinants of risk of mosquito-borne infections (e.g., air conditioning and window screens); Aedes surveillance, control, and insecticide resistance with a focus on LMICs; Insecticide resistance surveillance and management; GIS-based surveillance of vectors, infection, disease and insecticide resistance, including remote sensing and transmission modeling; Climate change and vector-borne diseases; Emerging threat of invasive Anopheles stephensi in Africa.
 
Global Health: Planetary health (climate change and tropical medicine, migration, urbanization); Global Health Diplomacy; Democratization and decolonization of Tropical Medicine and Global Health; Human rights, social justice, equity, and ethical issues pertinent to tropical and travel medicine in different global settings; Challenges and messaging for vaccine acceptance, vaccine hesitancy, and resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases in the tropics; Impact of COVID-19 on global health efforts to control or eliminate tropical or infectious diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria; Updates and challenges in achieving Sustainable Development Goals; Refugee health and immigration policy; Health economics and health program payment models; Behavioral economics and prevention and control of infectious diseases; Translation of research to policy; Information/ communication/ technology solutions in global health, including statistical/mathematical modeling; Implementation science.
 
Intestinal and Tissue Helminths: Single cell sequencing of immune responses to helminths, novel techniques to develop diagnostics and intervention strategies; Foodborne helminthiasis; TH1 viral/SARS CoV2 immune responses and impact on helminth infection and disease and vice versa.
 
Measures for Control and Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases: Preventive chemotherapy and antimicrobial resistance; Strategies to increase adherence to mass drug administration and other interventions, especially in hard-to-reach communities, impact of efforts towards elimination in global regions.
 
Malaria: Parasite genetic diversity driven by mass drug administration; Field-based evaluation of innate immunity to infection and impact on acquired immunity; Expanding drugbased interventions; Transformation of surveillance into core interventions; Vector surveillance and risk of reintroduction after elimination; Challenge studies in endemic settings; Elimination progress in high-burden countries; Next-generation sequencing technology to inform control and elimination strategies; Expanding access to diagnosis and treatment opportunities through integrated Community Case Management (iCCM).
 
One Health: The Interface of Human, Environmental Health and Animal Health: Emerging zoonotic diseases at the wildlife-human or domestic animal-human interface (Bacillus anthracis; Brucella spp., Yersinia pestis); Ecology of vector-borne and/or zoonotic diseases that bridge host species, including rodent-borne viruses (e.g., Lassa, hantaviruses) and bat-borne viruses (e.g., Ebola, Marburg, coronaviruses); Evaluation and prediction of “spillover” events; LMIC community approaches to study of zoonotic transmission and antimicrobial resistance of microbes.
 
Pneumonia, Respiratory Infections and Tuberculosis: Influenza in the developing world; New respiratory viral threats (e.g., SARS CoV2, MERS CoV, novel influenza viruses) and their impact(s) on other respiratory diseases; Influence of household and/or industrial air pollution on respiratory infections; Respiratory diseases of childhood; Novel TB diagnostics, therapeutic regimens, long-term complications of respiratory infections (SARS CoV2, TB, others); Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.
 
Protozoal Diseases (non-malaria): Pathogenesis, diagnostics, drug discovery, novel vaccines, and protective immunity; Therapeutic targets including immunotherapy; Drug resistance; New strategies to optimize disease control through vector or reservoir targeted measures; Transmission modeling.
 
Virology: Arbovirus evolution and emergence; Development, efficacy, and safety of vaccines for emerging viruses, including for dengue, chikungunya, Zika, Ebola, Lassa, Nipah, and SARS CoV2 and other coronaviruses; Poxviruses, including smallpox and monkeypox vaccines; Viral hepatitis, including global burden and prospects for control and elimination; Acute flaccid paralysis/ myelitis and enteroviruses (both polio and non-polio); Yellow fever; Patterns of viral genetic diversity within versus between hosts; Global transmission patterns of divergent viral strains of SARS CoV2; Vaccine escape variants.
 
Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Environmental Health (WaSH-E): Mitigating indoor and outdoor air pollution; WaSH-E in the Sustainable Development Goal era, including addressing gaps and equity issues; WaSH-E in healthcare facilities; WaSH-E effects on maternal and neonatal health; Multi-sectoral integration (e.g., WaSH-E and nutrition, WASH-E and NTDs, WASH-E and vaccination); Planetary Health and WASH-related diseases; Environmental surveillance for waterborne transmission of pathogens and antibiotic resistant microbes; Environmental toxicology. 


 
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