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2024 ASTMH Awards Ceremony 

Click on the following awards for more information about their honorees:
                     
 
















Donald Krogstad Award for Early-Career Malian Scientists
Nouhoum Diallo
Proposal Title: Identifying host receptors for Plasmodium falciparum infected erythrocyte sequestration in cerebral malaria among Malian children.

2024 Alan J. Magill Fellow
Punam Amratia
"My childhood in Kenya bore witness to malaria's profound impact, inspiring my career in geospatial disease modelling. Since starting with the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) in 2018, I have become an expert geospatial modeller dedicated to global malaria eradication efforts. My leadership within MAP, such as driving WHO High Burden High Impact (HBHI) risk stratification modelling, has fostered close ties with malaria programs (NMCPs) and country partners. As the demand for data-driven insights grows across Africa, so does the need for a geospatial modelling community attuned to local epidemiological contexts and the dynamic landscape of malaria control. This need prompted MAP's decentralisation and the establishment of an East Africa node at the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) with a vision of possibly further expansion across the continent. However, to meet NMCPs’ analytical needs, there is a need for more modelling expertise on the continent and there is a notable lack of female modelling presence. If given the opportunity, my goal would be to cultivate a strong geospatial modelling unit to support NMCPs, with deliberate strategies to give opportunities to African women. As MAP's technical lead, my role is to guide geospatial efforts, mentor upcoming modellers, and align technical, programmatic, and policy realms.

"My application for the Alan Magill Fellowship, guided by Profs. Sheetal Silal and Deus Ishengoma aims to enhance my career and leadership skills which will enable me to explore the operational dynamics of successful applied modelling groups and support me in establishing a critical mass of geospatial modellers trained in translational science to be able to effectively model key research priorities and communicate results appropriately to improve evidence-based decision and policy making. As part of the fellowship, I will immerse myself within NMCP Tanzania and WHO Global Malaria Program (WHO-GMP) surveillance unit as well as WHO Africa Region Precision Public Health Department (WHO-AFRO PPH) to see how policy and implementation can be shaped by geospatial modelling. I will additionally seek formal training on leadership and learn from my mentors how successful mathematical modelling groups in Africa work. These learnings will inform the establishment of a mentoring scheme to increase the number of female African scientists in applied geospatial modelling."

Distinguished International Fellows
Kwaku Poku Asante
Dr. Asante has distinguished himself in malaria research with broad-reaching global impact through his scientific career, his leadership of the Malaria Vaccine Implementation Program, his central role in linking research to policy, and his mentorship of trainees throughout the world.

Mauricio Barreto
Recognized as an internationally renowned researcher, Dr. Barreto's academic research has a wide and diverse scientific spectrum, consistently addressing questions surrounding social and environmental determinants of health, health inequalities, the impact of social and health interventions on health outcomes, and the integration of social and biological knowledge for causal explanations in health.

Christopher Drakeley
Prof. Drakely is a remarkable scientist in that his work spans from the laboratory (e.g., his revival of serologic assays for malaria parasite infection) to the field (e.g., his probing of critical diagnostic and intervention issues related to malaria transmission) to the classroom (e.g., his teaching and mentoring of so many students in the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and in many malaria endemic countries around the world) and to the policy dialogue.

Fyezah Jehan
Dr. Jehan's extraordinary contributions to tropical medicine and hygiene, particularly in pediatric infectious diseases, maternal and child health, and epidemiology, make her an exemplary candidate for this prestigious recognition.  She is dedicated to improving health outcomes in some of the world's most vulnerable populations and is a recognized leader in global health research innovation.  

Claudio Lanata
Dr. Lanata's research on diarrheal diseases, particularly rotavirus and cholera, has been instrumental in improving our understanding of the epidemiology and transmission of these illnesses. His expertise and insights have been instrumental in shaping global health policies and strategies, particularly in the areas of infectious disease prioritization, control and vaccine development.

Joel Tarning
Prof. Tarning is an ideal candidate to receive this honor, considering his exceptional scholarly accomplishments, his global leadership in the area of antimalarial pharmacology, his long-standing relationship with the ASTMH, and his international recognition including as winner of the Bailey K. Ashford Medal.

Antoinette Tshefu Kitoto
Dr. Antoinette Tshefu has contributed to a vast range of health-related topics and her work had true positive impact on the health and wellbeing of many patients, not only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In addition, she was the teacher, supervisor, mentor and role model of a large number of students (including many women).

Monique Wasunna
Dr. Wasunna is an internationally recognized physician, scientist (PhD), teacher and leader in the field of global public health and tropical medicine. In particular, Dr. Wasunna has made seminal contributions to the understanding and research and development of new drugs and treatments against Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) by focusing on the most vulnerable and neglected populations in the world.
 
Harry Hoogstraal Medal
Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena
Dr. Jacobs-Lorena’s outstanding achievements as a Medical Entomologist spans a 55-year long academic career from 1977 to 2022. Over this long career, he made distinguished contributions to the field of insect vector biology, particularly malaria parasite/mosquito interactions and genetic modification of mosquito vector competence.  His discoveries have continually been published in some of our high impact journals and have generated new paradigms for mosquito control to reduce malaria transmission.
 
A native of Brazil, Dr. Jacobs-Lorena began his studies at São Paulo University and obtained his Master’s degree at Osaka University, Japan before moving to MIT in Cambridge, Mass for his PhD and then to Geneva Switzerland for his postdoctoral studies.  His academic career began in 1977 at Case Western Reserve University where he eventually served at the rank of Professor between 1993-2003.   He subsequently was recruited to the Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2003 and eventually retired as an Emeritus Professor in 2022.  Despite being Emeritus, Dr. Jacobs-Lorena continues to be productive and influential.  Over these many years, he has been one of the most influential Vector Biologists in the USA and abroad in multiple fields and contributed to research and training of the next generation vector biologists in his laboratory and the broad global community.
 
Dr. Jacobs-Lorena has been highly productive.  He has published his discoveries in 182 peer-reviewed papers and ten book chapters – notably in some of the most influential peer-review journals in science.  A quick review of his Biosketch indicates that eight of his manuscripts were published in Science, five in Nature, eight in high impact PLOS journals and 21 in Proceedings of National Academy Sciences, USA among other influential peer-review journals.  Of note, in the majority of these publications, Dr. Jacobs-Lorena is either the lead author or is co-lead author with his trainees.  This stellar record of high caliber publications is a testament to the novelty, conceptual and broad impact of his research findings that are highly comprehensive and interdisciplinary in nature and span multiple disciplines, including biochemistry, parasitology, entomology and microbiology. 
 
While at Case Western University, he made a groundbreaking discovery in curing malaria by genetically modifying mosquitoes to produce a substance in their gut that kills off the malaria causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum. The transgenic mosquitoes encoded peptides that block receptors in the mosquito's gut and salivary glands so that the parasite could not replicate and complete its development for transmission to humans when the mosquito bites. Following this discovery, Dr. Jacobs-Lorena was recruited to Johns Hopkins University to contribute toward their malaria research in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. 

There, he initiated studies to develop transgenic mosquitoes immune to the Plasmodium parasite. He showed that when an immunity gene (SPRN6) was permanently activated, such mosquitoes could disrupt malaria transmission to humans and that such transgenic mosquitoes lived longer and produced more eggs than their non-modified counterparts as they did not utilize their nutritional resources towards parasite development. These findings were among the first to suggest that transgenic mosquitoes could be introduced into nature to replace malaria-carrying mosquitoes if they had higher reproductive output and could live longer.

Later, Jacobs-Lorena and colleagues identified a sugar moiety in mosquitoes that allows Plasmodium falciparum parasite to attach itself to the mosquito's gut. By reducing the level of this particular sugar in the mosquito gut, his research team demonstrated that they could prevent parasite attachment to the gut and subsequent transmission to the next host. His efforts in developing genetically modified mosquitoes earned him recognition from the popular journal Scientific American as a researcher whose accomplishments in research, business or policymaking demonstrate outstanding technological leadership.

Jacobs-Lorena was one of the pioneers that began focusing on the bacteria that live symbiotically in the mosquitoes’ guts with the goal of modifying them to produce compounds that interfere with the parasite's development – an approached termed paratransgenesis.  One of the bacteria his group focused on is Serratia which they were able to genetically engineer for the secretion of anti-Plasmodium effector proteins and showed that mosquitoes.  One of his latest publications presented in Science has identified the mechanistic basis of parasite resistance contributed by a symbiotic bacteria that was identified from the guts of malaria resistant mosquitoes.  The inhibitory compound they identified from this microbe has a multitude of downstream applications, such as use on bednets or in sugar baits to inhibit parasite transmission as an alternative approach to control malaria that is on the rise due to emerging insecticide resistance in mosquitoes.

As a testament for his stellar discoveries, Prof Jacobs-Lorena has been recognized as Elected Fellow in 2009 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAs) for “distinguished contributions to the field of insect vector biology, particularly malaria parasite/mosquito interactions and genetic modification of mosquito vector competence and in 2016 by American Academy of Microbiology in recognition of “excellence, originality, and leadership in the microbiological sciences.”  In 2021, he received the Shikani/El Hibri Prize for Discovery and Innovation for “a major scientific contribution with significant potential for public health or clinical impact.”

During his long academic career, he also played pivotal roles in various organizations, notably through his extensive service on various NIH review panels, on World Health Organization/TDR Committee on Molecular Entomology. He also was the Founding member and lecturer of an International Course on the Biology of Disease Vectors that was offered annually from 1990 to 2007. This two-week lecture and laboratory course on insect vectors of human disease trained many of the current renown vector biologists from the US and abroad. He was the organizer of the two courses (1999 and 2007) that took place in Manaus, Amazon (Brazil). He also has been a Member of the Organizing Committee of the "Workshop on Population and Molecular Biology of Disease Vectors," which is another highly popular meeting organized in Kolymbari, Crete, Greece from 2012 to 2024.
 
In summary, Dr. Jacobs-Lorena is most deserving of this the Harry Hoogstraal Medal reserved for an individual with Outstanding Achievement in Medical Entomology.  He dedicated his career to understanding and then developing novel technologies for the control of one of the most devastating medical vectors, Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit deadly malaria causing parasites.  During his over 50 years of career, he trained and/or helped train the next generation of vector biologists globally.  He served on influential committees and generously contributed his effort and time to guide important grant review panels, national/international meetings and activities.
 
William Trager Award for Basic Parasitology
Sebastian Lourido
Dr. Lourido  received his undergraduate B.Sc. degree from Tulane University, majoring in Cell and Molecular Biology. At Tulane he was the recipient of a Distinguished Scholars Award and received an outstanding Honors Thesis Award, as well as completing a Masters in Fine Arts in the process. After graduation he spent two years working at the Max Plank Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, one of the most internationally respected microbiology laboratories. Based on his outstanding credentials, Dr. Lourido  was chosen to receive a Scholars Award from the Division of Biomedical and Biological Sciences at Washington University, one of only a handful given each year in a campus-wide competition. As a graduate student, Dr. Lourido  published first author papers in Nature, EMBOJ, ACS Chem. Bio., as well as coauthored works in J. Med. Chem., Nat. Struct. Molec. Biol., and a highly cited review in Cell Host Microbe. Dr. Lourido  was one of the most productive students to complete his Ph.D. in the graduate program here at Washington University and he received the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Fellowship Award from the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences in recognition of his achievements. After completing his graduate work at Washington University, Dr. Lourido  joined the Whitehead Institute as a Faculty Fellow, eventually being hired as an Assistant Professor and then promoted to Associate Professor in the Biology Department at MIT.

Published in a seminal paper in Cell in 2016, Dr. Lourido  executed the first, and only example in parasites, genome-wide CISPR screen that provided “fitness scores” for all ~ 8,000 genes in Toxoplasma gondii in a single experiment. This tour de force advance was further validated by testing a wide range of novel candidates that revealed entirely new and essential aspects of the biology of T. gondii. Dr. Lourido  first announced his breakthrough pre-publication at the Annal Toxoplasmosis meeting in 2015 to an audience of approximately 300 members of the field. After his talk, there was an extended silence as the audience collectively realized that this achievement would revolutionize the field. Since that announcement, his discovery has changed how every lab prioritizes the choice of genes they work on, and it has set an example of what can be achieved in other related parasites. Although not directly transferable, the strategies have informed and enabled similar approaches, albeit often limited to pools of genes, in numerous parasites including Plasmodium, Trypanosoma cruzi and Cryptosporidium. In comparing this advance to others in the field, I would rank it as the single most important discovery in Toxoplasma over the last several decades (since transgenesis become possible), and one of the top five discoveries in all of parasitology over a similar time frame. What is even more remarkable about Dr. Lourido ’s discovery as that he accomplished what would have been a hugely ambitions undertaking for any major lab, while still an Assistant Professor!  This achievement epitomizes his creative, courageous, and fearless approach to science.

The fitness score of all genes in T. gondii has been incorporated into ToxoDB where it provides an immediate index of the likely essentiality of every gene in the genome, at least under normal culture conditions, thus saving investigators enormous amounts of time and resources.  Every experiment in my lab begins with consulting this index, and I am quite sure it is the same in very lab in the field. Subsequent follow up papers from Dr. Lourido ’s lab utilized this approach to define the master regular of development of the chronic bradyzoite stage in T. gondii.  This work was also published in Cell 2020 and has been followed by serval other highprofile papers on the regulation of this pathway in Nature Microbiology. Additionally, Dr. Lourido  has generously provided his technology and materials to other members of the field thus enabling powerful genome wide screens to define genes important in in vivo, in interferon activated cells, and under different metabolic conditions. Each of these project areas breaks new ground and has been performed at the very highest caliber.   In summary, I give Dr. Lourido  my very highest recommendation for the William Trager Award.  His creative and ambitious discovery has been game changing for everyone who does molecular parasitology and establishes him as a clear leader in the field.   

Martin S. Wolfe Mentoring Award
Thomas Nutman 
Throughout his career, Dr. Nutman has been steadfast in his commitment to the field of clinical tropical medicine and the training of a new generation of clinicians and scientists. He has not only directly mentored over 100 fellows, students, and practitioners of tropical medicine, an unusually large number of whom have gone on to successful careers in tropical medicine, but he has contributed to the education of countless others both in the United States and abroad. 

Dr. Nutman’s interest in clinical tropical medicine began during his undergraduate years at Brown, where he studied drug resistance to schistosomiasis. After completing medical school at the University of Cincinnati and residency training at NYU-Bellevue, he joined the NIH Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases (LPD) for his fellowship training in Allergy-Immunology. He is currently the Chief of LPD, as well as Head of the LPD Human Immunology Section and Clinical Parasitology Unit, Director of the NIAID International Center for Excellence in Research (ICER) in Chennai, India and Co-Director of the Filariasis Unit of the NIAID ICER in Mali. Dr. Nutman’s research program focused on the diagnosis, treatment, and host responses to helminth infection has significantly advanced the field of tropical medicine, as evidenced by his CV with >500 publications in peer-reviewed journals, >100 book chapters, 6 patents, numerous invited lectures, and awards. That said, one of his greatest impacts has been on the training of the next generation of clinicians and researchers in tropical medicine, for which he has been recognized with the 2010 NIH Director’s Ruth L. Kirchstein Mentoring Award and the 2019 Ben Kean Medal of the ASTMH. 

The combination of Dr. Nutman’s breadth of knowledge in clinical tropical medicine, enthusiasm when faced with a challenging case, and compassion for patients, are reminiscent of other great clinical teachers, including Dr. Wolfe. When asked about Dr. Nutman’s current clinical trainees for a sentence or two to include in this nomination letter, colleagues sent paragraphs describing the impact that Dr. Nutman’s mentorship has had on their career paths and appreciation of tropical medicine. One infectious disease fellow in Dr. Nutman’s laboratory described his clinical mentoring style as follows: “In the clinic, he’s guided me (and I’m sure countless trainees before me) to recognize the common as well as the uncommon in the diseases we treat, has never let me feel less than or caused me to feel lacking for needing the input of his experience and expertise, and has always encouraged an inquiry mindset to learning not only the basics, but in deciding approaches with nuance to the care of our patients.” 

In summary, Dr. Nutman has had (and continues to have) an enduring impact on the practice of clinical tropical medicine through his training of clinicians and scientists. He is excellent as a mentor, both at a personal level and through the many conversations with physicians and researchers in the US and abroad who have benefitted from his mentorship.

Scherer-Hardy Award
Carrera 
Dr. Carrera has an exceptional understanding of ecology, epidemiology and an extensive training in infectious disease. As a visiting scientist, he brought with him several sera from patients with undifferentiated febrile illnesses, which he leveraged to get expertise in serological and molecular diagnostic assays, leading to the discovery of Madariaga virus, previously designated as South American Eastern equine encephalitis virus, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He was able to also detect imported chikungunya cases into Panama as well as Punta Toro fever clusters in areas surrounding Panama City. Leveraging these outcomes he was able to form partnerships with the Panamanian Ministry of Health, in order to expand surveillance programs nationwide using mobile applications for community-level disease detection. Upon his return to Panama in 2011, he extended his research to identify alphavirus reservoirs and vectors in in the Darien and Latin America, exploring the link between deforestation and alphavirus emergence in collaboration with colleagues  in Peru and Brazil. 

That was only the beginning for Dr. Carrera. He continued his education obtaining an MS in Quantitative Epidemiology and an MA in Education from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru and Columbus University in Panama, respectively, while activelly and concurrently pursuing his field studies. In 2019 he was admitted at Oxford University in the UK for his doctoral studies in Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Evolution earning his doctorate in early 2024. 

It is also critically important to recognize Dr. Carrera’s flexibility to adapt and change research directions based on the needs and urgency of the any team that he is part of. During his dissertation studies he was able to able to leverage his skills and redirect his research program skills to advise the Panamanian Ministry of Health on outbreak modeling for the COVID-19 response, by leading the national serosurveys during lockdown. Critically, his involvement in this outbreak strengthened his commitment to actively engage with the public. Here again, he leveraged his knowledge acquired during his studies in Education to disseminate scientific knowledge and facts through social media, vaccination campaigns, and television programs, thus translating scientific evidence into accessible information. Remarkably, while on lockdown he was also able to continue his doctoral studies which were supported in part by the Coordinating Research on Emerging Arboviral Threats Encompassing the Neotropics (CREATE-NEO), a member of the NIH-funded Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREIDs), to continue surveillance in the Darien for arboviruses, strengthen existing capacity, and publish four seminal manuscripts on orthobunyavirus and alphavirus surveillance. Remarkably, he built bridges by collaborating with researchers in the US, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, Brazil and the UK. As result, he founded the Carson Center, an NGO focusing on measuring and mitigating the consequences of migration, climate change, and deforestation. He supported this mission by purchasing a property covering 88 hectares of forest, and housing space for work and accommodation facilities, as well as a cutting edged BSL-2 container lab, focused on zoonotic research and capacity building to undertake active surveillance of emerging zoonotic threats. 

He has produced several seminal publications on the subjects of ecology and epidemiology of emerging alphaviruses, discovery of novel viruses, and outbreak response, investigation and control of arboviruses.

Although Dr Carrera is relatively junior in his career his accomplishments to date are surpassing many established mid-career investigators. His dedication and insights into the mechanisms of arbovirus emergence have set the gold standard of collaborative science not only in Panama, but also internationally and serve as a standard that must be emulated by his peers. This framework of standards can be seamlessly copied, redirected and retooled for any aspiring scientist in the global North and South to form collaborative networks or respond to any pathogen emergence as well as for pandemic preparedness. Importantly, Dr Carrera, has been a member of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the American Committee on Arthropod-Borne Viruses and Zoonotic Viruses since 2013, further supporting his commitment to arbovirology and scientific societies. 

Dr. Carrera is already serving as a mentor to several trainees at the undergraduate, masters, doctoral, postdoctoral level, either as a direct supervisor, dissertation committee or ad-hoc member. His mentorship ethos and skills are quite effective, and importantly, he has also demonstrated a strong commitment to teaching and service responsibilities across the institutional landscape as well as national and international organizations.  His outstanding teaching commitment and effectiveness are reflected to the exceptional student evaluations, that only the very best can aspire to achieve. Impressively he has developed a safe, inclusive and diverse environment that serves as an example for all and a beacon of hope in these challenging times. These activities are above and beyond what is expected for any aspiring scientist at such an early stage in their career, which I am sure your committee will greatly appreciate. 

In conclusion, Dr. Carrera has been a model scientist citizen and has demonstrated excellence in scientific research and teaching/mentorship. His professional development is expected to remain in an ascending trajectory and his research program to flourish as more opportunities arise, and critically enable him to lead a robust research program, supported by external funding under his own leadership as PI.

Communications Award
Leslie Roberts
“A spiking fever: Long neglected, Lassa fever is surging
in West Africa. Researchers want to know why”
By Leslie Roberts
Science
 
Bailey K. Ashford Medal
Andrew S. Azman
Dr. Azman first trained in engineering and received his B.S. and M.S. degree in Environmental and Civil Engineering, with a focus on water and sanitation. He initially worked as a Water and Sanitation Advisor at Action Contre la Faim in Uganda and South Sudan and with UNICEF in Malawi, where he saw first-hand the detrimental public health impact of poor water and sanitation systems. His interests pivoted to public health, where he believed his efforts could be directed at solving these major public health problems on a global scale. He returned to Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (JHSPH) for additional graduate training supported by the prestigious Sommer Scholars Award (fully funded opportunity, before this was the standard graduate offer!). He graduated with an M.S. in Biostatistics and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology (receiving the departmental award for his thesis work) with a focus on quantitative methods in 2014. He then completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr Justin Lessler at JHSPH, where he put his epidemiologic stills into practice to continue studying cholera, including a focus on how to measure the burden to prioritize interventions, and optimal deployment of scarce cholera vaccines. 

Since his training, Dr. Azman has focused extensively on the global problem of cholera as well as other enteric and water-borne diseases, in the world’s most impoverished and impacted settings. For cholera in particular, his research and dedication has advanced almost all facets of the field, including epidemiology to vaccine evaluation, to policy. In Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, he has studied and published extensively on improving cholera surveillance, the benefit of single dose cholera vaccines, the role of asymptomatic disease, misidentification of clinical cases with other diarrheal illnesses, and the implementation of interventions to prevent transmission. His work on cholera and hepatitis E virus has been awarded multiple millions of dollars in research funding from the Gates Foundation. 

He has pioneered efforts to use serologic surveys to uncover the hidden burden of cholera infections, particularly in places where surveillance systems for disease are poor. These methods demand an expert understanding of cholera infections, immunology, and sophisticated quantitative analyses – a rare combination of qualities among public health scientists. Alongside his excellent scientific contributions to the published literature, he has also advised and mentored many doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows who have gone onto faculty positions and prestigious training positions with the US CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. Few scientists have had such a large impact on the future generation of public health as Andrew Azman, only 10 years post-PhD graduation. Dr. Azman’s expertise and contributions to the field of water-borne disease control are evidenced by his wide collaborations, and numerous global service appointments, which is exceptional for someone at his career stage. He collaborates closely with Medicins Sans Frontières, and has served on the WHO Global Task Force for Cholera Control as a member of both the oral vaccine working group (since 2014) and the Epidemiology/Surveillance working group (since 2015). At the International Vaccine Initiative, he served on the Technical Advisory Committee for Modeling Impact and Ending Cholera Global Roadmap. He joined the GAVI Independent Review Committee in 2019. 

His expertise extends to other infectious diseases, including enteric fever and hepatitis E, especially in South Asia. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Azman’s skills in quantitative epidemiology and data analysis made him a key contributor to multiple research collaborations and publications articulating surveillance, seroprevalence, correlates of protection, outbreak investigations and risk of re-infection. In particular, his studies have used serologic surveys to uncover transmission patterns and guide prevention efforts. His wide-ranging SARS-CoV2 collaborations extended from Sudan, to Bangladesh, and Switzerland. 

Dr. Azman’s work on cholera and other infectious diseases leverage his engineering, biostatistics, and epidemiology degrees, and continue to provide a platform for training the next generation for ASTMH members. His work has improved the health of large global populations at risk for cholera and his commitment to global public is highly deserving of recognition with the Bailey K. Ashford medal. Finally, Dr. Azman is known for his unfailing humility, thoughtful approach, and dedication to building capacity for research in LMICs, characteristics that might be difficult to discern from a CV. 

Jonathan Juliano
Prof. Juliano is committed to high impact, rigorous science, but most especially to capacity building throughout Africa, most notably in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi. Prof. Juliano leads IDEEL (Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Ecology Lab), which is a consortium of faculty at UNC and several other universities including Imperial College of London, Brown University, and the University of Florida, among others. IDEEL covers several classical tropical medicine diseases but with a leading focus on malaria. Through IDEEL he has mentored many junior faculty at UNC, primarily physician-scientists to become successful malaria and tropical medicine researchers with their own NIH awards.  

Prof. Juliano was integral in standing up, with the help of the Gates Foundation a malaria genomics hub with Dr. Deus Ishengoma in partnership with the National Institute for Malaria Research in Tanzania. He has also taken under his wing Dr. Innocent Ali, an assistant professor in Cameroon, to help Innocent build a fully functioning mini-genomics malaria lab in Dschang, West Cameroon, from literally an empty room. These are recent examples that dovetail on over a decade of training and research in the Democratic Republic of Congo with the Kinshasa School of Public Health. Prof. Juliano usually says that he is working hard to put himself out of a job, envisioning that his capacity building efforts will eventually lead to bona fide independent research capability across a broad swathe of the African continent—and it has. His CV speaks for itself with respect to the caliber of his research in tropical medicine, but it is this “other” important aspect of his tropical medicine work, i.e., his commitment to building capacity that I would like to emphasize in particular with respect to this nomination. 

From being responsible for the burst of sequenced Plasmodium genomes, to understanding the spread of artemisinin resistance across East Africa to his effective mentorship and commitment to malariology and tropical medicine, it is his sustained humility in spite of his achievements that makes him a worthy candidate of any prize, but certainly befitting the Bailey K. Ashford Medal.
 
Clara Southmayd Ludlow Medal
Firdausi Qadri
Dr. Qadri epitomizes the qualities of the woman after whom the medal is named; Dr. Qadri is known for her pioneering spirit and accomplishments, and has achieved outrageous professional success by any standard, overcoming numerous barriers.

Dr. Qadri received her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1975 from Dhaka University, just 4 years after the devastating war for independence in Bangladesh. She went onto receive her Masters from the same institution, and completed her PhD in biochemistry and immunology from the University of Liverpool in 1980. At this time in Bangladesh’s history, women were severely under represented in education and the sciences; in fact, at the time, only about 1 in 5 adult females could read.

Following a short career as a faculty member at Dhaka University, she joined the icddr,b in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1988, and became the Head of the Immunology Laboratory in 1996. She went onto become the Director of the Center for Vaccine Sciences in 2011, and the Senior Director for the Division of Infectious Diseases in 2015, one of the only women to ever hold such a senior position in icddr,b’s 65+ year history. Attempts to summarize the accomplishments of her career could never fully capture the breadth and depth of the impact she’s had – with ~600 peer-reviewed publications and ~500 postgraduate students trained, and too many advisory committee roles to count. Her contributions to the icddr,b as an organization are manifold, serving on the Senior Leadership Team for the institute since 2015. Still, her career carries on at full speed where her field trials enroll participants hundreds of thousands of people at time.

Dr. Qadri is best known for her considerable contributions to cholera vaccine development and implementation. Although candidate oral cholera vaccines have been around for many decades, they were not routinely used, due to lack of evidence about their performance. Dr. Qadri had led seminal studies demonstrating the impact of cholera vaccines and works tirelessly to bring them to the highest risk populations in Bangladesh. During the Rohyngya refugee crisis on the border with Myanmar, outbreaks of measles and cholera were feared; however, the outbreaks never materialized, largely due to efforts to immunize refugees spearheaded by Dr. Qadri.

In Bangladeshi culture, family is very important and central to the lives of women and men alike, although family expectations for daily care of children and the elderly fall primarily to women. Not only is she a widly successful scientist, but she was a proud wife and mother to three children, all raised during her tenure at icddr,b. Other female scientists looked to Dr. Qadri for advice about how to navigate the considerable obstacles to balancing family and career within their cultural context. She regularly held meetings to support and was a trusted advisor on professional and personal matters for other, younger female scientists. She is selfless in her offers of support to others. She is widely known by those who work with her closely as “Apa”, or big sister.

Dr. Qadri, like Dr. Ludlow, is an icon. She has won awards from the American Society of Microbiology, the Mérieux Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Independence Award, which is the highest award given by the Government of Bangladesh for service to the country. In 2021, she won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for her lifelong commitment to vaccine research which has saved the lives of millions people in Bangladesh.

Among her colleagues and collaborators, her determination and strength of spirit are legendary. She lives by the saying that “anything is possible in Bangladesh” – if she can dream that something should happen, she will do everything she can to make it so. One of those dreams was to create a new research NGO, dedicated to development of science and technology in Bangladesh, and encouraging more Bangladeshis to work in the field of biomedical sciences. That dream came alive in 2012 when she formed the Institute for Developing Science and Health Initiatives (ideSHi). The institute is a thirving research organization involved in research beyond infectious diseases – they also tackle other important health problems for Bangladesh, including cancer and thalassemia.

There is no doubt that Clara Ludlow would have recognized many of her own qualities in Dr. Qadri. We cannot imagine someone more deserving of the Clara Ludlow award than Firdausi Qadri and we thank you for considering this nomination. 

Joseph Augustin LePrince Medal
Didier Menard
Prof. Menard has had an extraordinary impact in the field of malaria. First, he has transformed our understanding of how Plasmodium falciparum parasites acquire resistance to first-line antimalarial drugs in endemic areas, and how these resistance traits emerge and spread and compromise the clinical efficacy of first-line drugs. Second, he has made important discoveries in the area of Plasmodium vivax, including the seminal demonstration from research in Madagascar that P. vivax could cause clinical malaria in patients with Duffy-negative reticulocytes. This is an important discovery, as these results suggest that a large number of individuals in sub-Saharan Africa could be silent carriers of P. vivax and, consequently, that malaria could be largely underestimated in Africa and often untreated. 

Prof. Menard is a French citizen who nas a PharmD and PhD. He was then recruited into the Pasteur Institute International Network. Working first as the head of a medical biology laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in New Caledonia and then successively as a Lab Head at the Pasteur Institutes in the Central African Republic, Madagascar, and Cambodia and on to the Institute Pasteur, Paris.

Prof. Menard’s major research was to show markers for drug resistance in P. falciparum. One of Prof. Menard’s major publications include the evidence that mutations in K13 in P. falciparum in Cambodia are associated with delayed clearance of P. falciparum and the requirement of a higher concentrations of artemisinin to kill parasites between 1 and 4 hours of the asexual  cycle.  Further publications on K13 mutations include a paper in Science in 2015, Nature Medicine and in the NEJM 2016 in a worldwide map of the K13 polymorphisms where artemisinin is used for antimalarial treatment.  He further studied piperaquine resistance and showed resistance was associated with multicopies of plasmepsin 2.

In addition to these studies in P. falciparum, he made a seminal study in P. vivax in Duffy negative Africans in Madagascar.  He showed that the infections were associated with lower parasitemia and less disease.  This is a critical finding because P. vivax is often missed, even where excellent microscopist work and remains untreated and may lead to anemia.  It is only identified in all patients with PCR with parasite specific markers and these studies are not performed in most clinics in Africa.  It is now evident that P. vivax is found in Duffy negative Africans throughout Africa and will require a solution to know how to diagnose P. vivax.  The second question was why P. vivax is found in Duffy negative Africans and showed that Duffy blood group is expressed on Duffy negative red cells, a finding that was also observed by another group at the same time.

In addition to his scientific accomplishments, Prof. Menard is also a broadly solicited expert who serves on key advisory panels for the World Health Organization and the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN). He is also a regular attendee at international meetings, including regular attendance at ASTMH meetings over multiple years. Prof. Menard clearly captures the big picture in terms of identifying areas of critical need in malaria research and how to implement research programs that profoundly advance the field. He is both an excellent scientist, a terrific communicator, and a person of impeccable scientific standards and rigor. He has an outstanding international reputation and is clearly on a trajectory to continue to lead the field in antimalarial drug resistance and P. vivax biology research, along with other innovations that he constantly develops.
 
Walter Reed Medal
Stephen L. Hoffman
The Walter Reed Medal commemorates the discovery of yellow fever transmission by mosquitoes by Walter Reed and his military colleagues at Cuba, which was an accomplishment that resonates in the life and work of Dr. Hoffman. As a physician scientist he labored in the remote jungles and urban slums of Southeast Asia during his two decades of military service where he made extraordinary and impactful discoveries. Steve reported on plague, parasites of refugees, lymphatic filariasis, dengue, cholera, typhoid fever, and malaria.  

The listing of Dr. Hoffman’s scientific discoveries and accomplishments speak to his unwavering commitment to and leadership of tropical medicine. The most compelling examples include: discovery of high dose dexamethasone reducing mortality due to severe typhoid fever by >80% in Jakarta hospitals (NEJM 1984); first induction of cytotoxic T cells by a nucleotide vaccine (Science 1998); first genomic sequence of a Plasmodium falciparum chromosome (Science 2000); hyperimmune plasma therapy for influenza (AnnIntMed 2006); in vitro cultivation of P. falciparum infectious sporozoites (Nature 2022).  

The company Dr. Hoffman founded de novo two decades ago, Sanaria Inc., embodies his bold and pioneering spirit. Apart from the wholly new technology involved with live attenuated malaria parasite vaccines, the company itself is novel as a public good private enterprise involving hard-won research investments without the involvement of venture capital. Sanaria has gone on to conduct over 40 clinical trials in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia measuring the safety, tolerability, immunogenicity, and protective efficacy of GMP attenuated sporozoite vaccines – a truly global effort emanating from a Sanaria wellspring. The recent demonstration of protective efficacy against P. falciparum infection in pregnant African women for 2 years without boosting (NEJM, submitted) is the culmination of over two decades of extraordinarily challenging technological and physical work. Over the years 2013-2020, the Sanaria team built a clinical laboratory and trials facility in Equatorial Guinea that supports not only their efforts but the broader health of those residents, e.g., fielding the first SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic in Africa in late January 2020. Today, Sanaria stands at the vanguard of malaria vaccinology and does so thanks to Dr. Hoffman’s vision, leadership, tenacity, and demonstrated commitment to improving the health of people living under the weight of morbidity and mortality caused by tropical infectious diseases. 
 
Remarkably, Dr. Hoffman has also directly and substantially contributed to the mission, work, and leadership of this Society. Apart from serving as our President and leading the ACCTMTH, he conceived and implemented the prestigious Ben Kean Medal, Kean Traveling Fellowship, and the ACMCIP. In collaboration with Michelle Barry, he established the Certificate of Knowledge in Tropical Medicine and Traveler’s Health, and he chaired the first Martin Wolfe Award committee. Dr. Hoffman has served on numerous ASTMH committees over the five decades of his membership, and nominated many recipients of ASMTH medals and Honorary Memberships. Dr. Hoffman’s impacts on our Society have been many, beneficial, and lasting. 
 
 
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