Professor Jonathan Carapetis is Director of the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin.  He is a paediatrician, infectious diseases and public health physician, with particular interests in group A streptococcal diseases, vaccines and vaccine preventable diseases, and health of children in Indigenous communities and developing countries.  Professor Carapetis is also Chairman of the World Heart Federation Scientific Council on Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease and since 2006
Named 2007 Northern Territory Australian of the year, Professor Carapetis is a leading young mind in the Australian health field, with particular expertise in Indigenous health.  As Director of Australia’s pre-eminent Indigenous health research institute, he is forging new directions in research and training to tackle the big problems in Indigenous health.  His work on controlling rheumatic heart disease and in developing new vaccine strategies is world class.  But more importantly, he possesses the ability to grasp the “big picture”, particularly in understanding the importance of social determinants such as housing, education and poverty.

Abdoulaye Djimdé received a PharmD degree from the University of Bamako, Mali in 1988 and a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore in 2001.
He is currently an Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology in the Faculties of Medicine, Pharmacy and Odonto-Stomatology at the University of Bamako and Head of the Molecular Epidemiology and Drug Resistance Unit at the Malaria Research and Training Centre, University of Bamako. The primary goal of his research is to understand how the malaria parasite became resistant to antimalarial drugs and how that resistance spreads over time and space. With his team and collaborators he conducted field and laboratory based analysis to explore how genetic events in the malaria parasite, the human host and the mosquito vector’s genomes relate to treatment outcome and the spread of drug resistance. He has co-authored over thirty peer reviewed scientific publications and over sixty abstracts. He sits on numerous Malian, African and International committees on Malaria and Health Research issues.

Marshall Lightowlers is Principal Research Fellow with the National Health and Medical Research Council and Professor in the Faculty of Veterinary Science at The University of Melbourne.  Professor Lightowlers’ research career has focused on the immunology and molecular biology of taeniid cestode parasites. He was a member of a team of scientists which developed the first recombinant vaccine against a parasitic disease. Subsequently he has sought to develope similar vaccines against infection with the larval stages of cestode parasites causing zoonotic infections in humans. This led to the development of highly effective, recombinant vaccines against cysticercosis in cattle and pigs caused by Taenia saginata and Taenia solium, respectively. In collaboration with researchers at Wallaceville New Zealand, he and his colleagues also produced a recombinant vaccine against infection with hydatid disease. The effectiveness of these vaccines makes them unique in helminth parasitology and they provide valuable models for the development of vaccines against other eukaryotic parasites. Professor Lightowlers’ vaccines against Taenia solium and Echinococcus granulosus are undergoing further development and optimization in preparation for their practical use.  Application of the vaccines will be expected to reduce the transmission of these parasites and thereby reduce the number of new human cases of hydatid disease and neurocysticercosis.  In October 2008 Professor Lightowlers’ vaccine against Taenia solium received more than $4M support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Global Alliance for Livestock Vaccines and Medicines (GALVmed). Professor Lightowlers has served as President of the Australian Society for Parasitology and has been awarded the society’s Bancroft-Mackerras Medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the Science of Parasitology.

GUSTAV NOSSAL was Director of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research for 30 years and is currently a consultant for the World Health Organization and for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  He was formerly Chairman of the Global Foundation Advisory Committee, and served for three years as Deputy Chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation.  He was knighted in 1977, made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1989 and appointed Australian of the Year 2000.

Dr. Dominique Soldati-Favre is associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Her group is primarily studying the molecular mechanisms implicated in Apicomplexan parasites motility, host cell attachment and invasion. The machinery called the Glideosome, involves the concerted action of myosin motors, regulators of actin dynamics, adhesins and proteases.

Debra Woods is a Senior Principal Scientist in the Veterinary Medicine Research and Development group at Pfizer Animal Health, based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. She currently heads the Endoparasiticides Discovery Research team, with responsibility for delivering novel anthelmintic lead molecules for progression to clinical development. She has worked in veterinary antiparasitic discovery since 1991, initially involved in the development of mechanism-based screens, then progressing to in vitro and in vivo parasite model development and project management of ecto- and endo-parasiticide discovery programs. In recent years, she has spear-headed investment in academic research directed towards applying molecular parasitology approaches to antiparasitic target identification and validation. In addition, she is the Pfizer Animal Health coordinator for the Pfizer/WHO-TDR collaboration, aimed at identifying novel leads for neglected parasite diseases and is one of the contributors to the WHO Helminth Initiative.