Surgeon of the Universidad de Antioquia, Colomba, has been 35 years as teacher and researcher, a specialist in tropical diseases, doctor in Infectious diseases from the Universidad de Granada, España. He is a Master in parasitology and a specialist from the University of Montpellier. He has studied medical entomology at the universities of Wisconsin and Notre Dame Director of PECET, multidisciplinary group with 28 projects ongoing research. Member of the Expert Panel of the World Health Organization in leishmaniasis and participation community. He has received multiple national and international awards.
Was graduated as an M.D. from the Universidad Complutense, Madrid (1979), and received the diploma on Tropical Medicine & Parasitology in Hamburg, Germany. He obtained his Ph.D. before spending two years at Cambridge University. Recently, Dr. Alvar has been the head of the Leishmaniasis program at DNDi since 2013, and from 2018, he is Senior Scientific Adviser. Previously (2004 to 2012), he headed the Leishmaniasis Control Program at WHO-NTD, having launched an ambitious strategic plan in several countries. Prior to this, he was the Director of the National Centre of Tropical Medicine at the Institute of Health Carlos III (MoH), Madrid. He organized and chaired WorldLeish-6 in Toledo, Spain in 2017. He has published more than 200 papers in national and international journals, and has written a half dozen of books.
Is head of the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Parasites of the Institute of Experimental Biology (IBE) of the Faculty of Sciences, Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), Caracas, Venezuela. He completed his PhD studies in 1991 at the University of Cambridge, UK. His main research interest has been the biochemistry and molecular biology of kinetoplastids organisms, such as Leishmania spp. and Trypanosoma spp.; his particular interests are: 1) the development of molecular probes to be used in molecular diagnostic studies and epidemiology; and 2) identification of drug targets, drug evaluation and resistance in Leishmania parasites. He has authored and co-authored several peer-reviewed publications, and has been a guest speaker at various national and international scientific meetings and specialized courses.
Biologist from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada and immunologist from the University of London, UK. Full professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) and Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Instituto de Biomedicina, UCV. He has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals and several book chapters. In 2005, he awarded by the most prestigious scientific award in Venezuela: Premio Fundación Empresas Polar “Lorenzo Mendoza Fleury” 2005. He was a member of editorial boards from the following scientific journals: Histology and Histopathology, Acta Microscopica, Dermatología Venezolana, Vitae, Immunobiology; and currently is Editor in Our Dermatology, Journal of Microbiology & Experimentation and International Journal of Clinical Dermatology & Research. Tapia is very active in the cyberspace with divulgative publications in various blogs.
Bacteriologist and Clinical Laboratory. Master in Microbiology, and Doctor in Basic Biomedical Sciences with emphasis on Immunoparasitology. She has been Professor at the School of Medicine, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia for 25 years and has been linked to the PECET group since she was an undergraduate student, working in research projects in leishmaniasis, mainly in the area of immunology, diagnosis and development of medicines, vaccines and medical devices. To date, it has 6 patents granted in the US and Colombia and others are under evaluation. In the last decade she has led the the Center for the development of products for tropical diseases and others of interest in public health – CIDEPRO where she is the development of medicines for tropical diseases and is currently the Executive Director.
Bacteriologist and Clinical Laboratory from the Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia. Master in Microbiology and Parasitology. Ph.D. in Basic Biomedical Sciences with an emphasis in Molecular Biology. Full professor at the University of Antioquia, attached to the Institute of Medical Research of the Faculty of Medicine. Coordinator of the PECET Molecular and Computational Biology Unit. With more than 20 years working in leishmaniasis and tropical diseases. More than 70 publications in national and international scientific Journals.
Full professor of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases at the Federal University of Piauí, Brazil. MD, Internist, and MSc in Tropical Medicine at the University of Brasília and DSc in Tropical Public Health at Harvard University. He is a practicing physician that has been studying visceral leishmaniasis for more than 30 years, from basic sciences to clinical medicine and epidemiology. He was one of the organizers of WL5, in Brazil, in 2013, and is past president of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine.
Bacteriologist, senior investigator, professor of the National University in Colombia and director of the Group de Research in Immunotoxicology (A Category, Colciencias 2019). Has 28 years of experience in research of Malaria and Leishmaniasis and has worked as a consultant for the Ministry of Health, with more than 35 publications nationally and internationally. In 2016 got a patent on the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis. She currently directs the Public Health Lab for the covid-19 pandemics and vaccine control for it.
MSc, PhD is the Director of the Centro Internacional de Entrenamiento e Investigaciones Médicas (CIDEIM) in Cali, Colombia. Her career focus is the Immunobiology of Infectious Diseases and Research Capacity Development based on interdisciplinary investigation in tropical infectious diseases. Dr. Saravia is a Member of the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Parasitic Diseases (Leishmaniasis), WHO, Geneva and the Director of the WHO/PAHO Collaborating Center for Leishmaniasis at CIDEIM.
Biologist, Microbiologist and Tropical Parasitologist currently working as an Emeritus Professor at Los Andes University, Faculty of Sciences, Department Biological Sciences, Bogotá. He is the director of the Tropical Parasitology Research Centre (CIMPAT) at the same university. Specialist on Chagas disease and other vector borne tropical diseases (vector and parasite) molecular ecoepidemiology, immunology, fossil DNA and control. Prof. Guhl has been working in research and control of Chagas Disease and other parasitic diseases in the last 35 years.
