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December 2020 Fortunato & Friends

Please join us on Tuesday, December 1st, at 2 p.m. ET for Fortunato & Friends, a new webcast series featuring Exelon Chief Economist Ed Fortunato and a special guest each month.

This month’s webinar features host Ed Fortunato, moderator Keith Poli and special guest Wilbur H. Chen, MD, MS, FACP, FIDSA, discussing the following topic:

  • Outlook for a COVID Vaccine and Economic Impact in 2021

Wilbur CHen

Dr. Chen is an adult infectious disease physician-scientist with a specific interest in clinical vaccinology. He is Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), Chief of the Adult Clinical Studies section within the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD, an organized research center of UMSOM), and Director of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Travel Medicine Practice.  

His research career has been focused on developing vaccines against pathogens of global health importance. Dr. Chen is active investigator within the NIAID-supported Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit (VTEU) network, which is responsible for conducting high-priority vaccine trials for the government. He has been a principal investigator on a number of vaccine trials, spanning influenza viruses (Seasonal, Pandemic 2009 H1N1, Avian H5N1, and Avian H7N9 influenza), agents of bioterror (Tularemia and Staphylococcal enterotoxin B), and enteric pathogens (typhoid, cholera and enterotoxigenic E. coli). He has funding support from NIH, CDC, DARPA, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and PATH (an international nonprofit research organization).

Dr. Chen is the recipient of many service and teaching awards and was elected Fellow in the American College of Physicians (FACP) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (FIDSA). He serves on a number of advisory capacities, including as core member of the NIAID Data & Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), incoming voting member of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and member of the organizing committee of the National Foundation for Infectious Disease (NFID) annual Clinical Vaccinology Course.

During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, Dr. Chen was the principal investigator of the NIAID-sponsored national H1N1 vaccine trials. Within the present COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Chen is serving as a member of Gov. Larry Hogan’s COVID-19 Task Force, co-leading the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) state-wide serological surveillance program of COVID-19, and is co-principal investigator of a CDC-funded COVID-19 syndromic surveillance program which is being implemented through the University of Maryland Medical System.