On October 24, 2019, the Infectious Disease Science Initiative (IDSI) successfully hosted its inaugural seminar entitled "Combating Infectious Diseases in the Modern World". Guests in attendance - graduate and doctoral students, scientists, UCI staff and faculty, and community health partners - had the pleasure of listening to two engaging speakers, Drs. Jennifer Gardy and Susan Huang, as they spoke about their newest cutting-edge research on precision public health and emerging infectious diseases control, both on a local and a global front.
The event started with a welcoming introduction of the UCI Infectious Disease Science Initiative by the Director, Dr. Sanghyuk Shin, who highlighted the remarkable resources at UCI that enable us to play a crucial role in leading the global infectious disease research. Many infectious diseases are on the rise in the world today, including measles, drug-resistant malaria, Ebola, and dengue. Dr. Gardy’s work on real-time, genomics-informed global pathogen surveillance using portable DNA sequencer and digital epidemiology was an innovative and revolutionary take on identifying and planning for epidemics. Next, Dr. Huang shared promising trial results from the CDC-funded SHIELD project in Orange County - a quality improvement intervention for hospitals, nursing homes and long-term acute care hospitals to reduce the spread and infections of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) through decolonization. Both speakers also discussed challenges with infectious disease control, including data quality and integration, intervention tailoring at the sub-national level, and resource limitation. Afterwards, guests stayed for the delightful reception on the balcony and enjoyed small bites and local wine over the sunset.
The UCI Infectious Disease Science Initiative team would like to thank all those who attended, and would like everyone to stay tuned for future events!
