April 22, 2021

Southeast Michigan Center for Medical Education's 43rd annual Research Forum set for May 26

The Southeast Michigan Center for Medical Education will present its 43rd annual Research Forum virtually on May 26, featuring Arnold Monto, M.D., presenting the annual Allen Silbergleit, M.D., Ph.D., keynote lecture.

Dr. Monto, an internationally-renowned expert in infectious disease prevention and vaccine effectiveness, will present “The Impact of COVID-19: Where We Stand.”

Arnold Monto, M.D.

The forum, schedule from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., will include research presentations and pre-recorded in voice-over PowerPoint format accessible for viewing. Winners of the David R. Pieper Research Award and the Donald Dawson Award will be announced following the keynote lecture.

Wayne State University Professor of Surgery Allen Silbergleit, M.D., Ph.D., performed the world’s first successful resection and graft of a ruptured mycotic/tuberculous abdominal aortic aneurysm in 1965. The patient was the first with a ruptured tuberculous aneurysm of the abdominal aorta to survive. A founding member of the Oakland Health Education Program, now the Southeast Michigan Center for Medical Education, Dr. Silbergleit developed new surgical techniques now referenced in medical textbooks. He recieved his doctoral degree from the School of Medicine in 1965, the same year he completed his residency at WSU.

The lecture is intended for physicians, residents, basic scientists and faculty researchers.

Dr. Monto is the Thomas Francis Jr. Collegiate Professor of Public Health and Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. He chaired the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meetings that led to emergency use authorization of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

The focus of Dr. Monto’s work has been the epidemiology, prevention and treatment of acute infections, with special reference to the evaluation of vaccines in various populations and the assessment of the value of antivirals. He has worked on these issues in tropical and temperate regions. He has studied various approaches to influenza vaccine use and is involved in assessing the efficacy of various types of influenza vaccine in prophylaxis and antivirals. He heads an observational study of effectiveness of influenza vaccines in various settings, and his recent activities have included evaluation of face masks and hand hygiene in the control of influenza transmission and determination of efficacy of the traditional inactivated and live attenuated influenza vaccines.

Dr. Monto has been a member of the National Allergy and Infectious Diseases Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health and is a member of the Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He is past-president of the American Epidemiological Society, the 2009 recipient of the Alexander Fleming Award of the Infectious Diseases Society of America for lifetime achievement and the 2012 recipient of the Charles Merieux Award of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. He was a member of the emergency committee making recommendations to the World Health Organization during the most recent influenza pandemic.

There is no fee to attend the research forum or the Dr. Silbergleit lecture, but registration is limited and will be on a first-come, first-served basis. A Zoom link will be sent to registrants. Registrations are being accepted now.

For more information, email Ginger Keiffer at gkeiffer@med.wayne.edu or visit www.semcme.org.

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