Friday October 23, 2020
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Online Zoom Meeting
Dear Colleagues:
Greetings, and I hope that you and yours are healthy and safe in this socially-distanced time.
As part of that distancing, we’re continuing the “Friday Lunch” as an online event. After over thirty-years of in-person discussions it’s a bit of an adjustment; but it has been good to see colleagues who have moved away and now can take advantage of the new format.
This week we ask one of our faculty to make sense of the massive flow of information – as well as the gaps in information – about the epidemiology, etiology, effects and treatment of the COVID-19 set of diseases. A gigantic research enterprise has sprung up to address these questions – from within governments, universities, and private corporations such as the pharmaceutical industry. How is SARS/Coronavirus 2 similar to or different from other pathogens, and what are the implications of those differences? What do we know about the course of the disease, and why some people get a lot sicker than others? What do we know about immunity after contracting the virus? What have we learned about how the virus spreads? Why have death rates gone down during the current burst of new cases?
These basic science questions shape the answers to more applied questions. What treatments have become available, and how well do they work? How close are the vaccine developers to having products that it makes sense to distribute – and what are the obstacles? What are the costs and benefits of strong public health measures? What can be done to slow the spread of the disease in especially vulnerable sites such as nursing homes?
Professor Cameron’s work has involved him in many of these questions, from being part of the rapid response team to the first SARS/Coronavirus outbreak, in 2003 in Toronto, to a new grant on limiting transmission in nursing homes. Please join us as he highlights some of the things that have been learned and some that remain quite unclear.
Signing In
This semester’s discussions will begin at 12:30 p.m., the usual time. The meeting will be set up as from Noon to 2:00 p.m., so people are not all signing in at the same time and to allow for the discussion to run a bit long. Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. Every Monday the same information will be posted on our website: fridaylunch.case.edu.
If you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. This week’s link for registration is:
https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0kfu-vrTMiHt2_UK5QslIlPRmHGoZL2j5q
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.
Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Dr. Mark Cameron applies genomic technologies and bioinformatic methods to identify biomarkers (immune correlates) of infectious diseases, such as HIV, and chronic inflammatory conditions, such as psoriasis. He and his team have broad computational expertise in analyzing across data types and studies, and focus their work on targets or diagnostics that can be used in specific immunotherapy or vaccine design.
Dr. Cameron also directs the genomics activities of several large cores or consortia, including the Case Western Reserve University Applied Functional Genomics Core, the Miami Center for AIDS Research (Inter-CFAR) Bioinformatics Core, the Case Western Reserve University CFAR Systems Biology Core, and the international Early Treated Perinatally Infected individuals: Improving Children’s Lives with an HIV Vaccine (EPIICAL). These collaborative cores allow Dr. Cameron to apply his systems approach and data from gene sequence, to gene transcription, to protein, cellular and antibody function, to find out what goes right or wrong in the immune systems of patients who respond variably to various diseases or treatments.
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
October 30: Election Forecast Discussion. With Karen Beckwith, Ph.D., Flora Stone Mather Professor of Political Science, and other faculty.
November 6: “Banning the Box”: The Substance and Politics of Legislation to Reduce Obstacles to Hiring Felons. With Daniel Shoag, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics.
November 13: Targeted Assassinations and Other Red and Not-So-Red Lines. With Shannon E. French, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Inamori Professor of Ethics, and Director, Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence
November 20: What’s the Beef? The Controversy Over the Health Effects of Red Meat. With Hope Barkoukis, Ph.D., Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Professor in Wellness and Preventive Care and Chair, Department of Nutrition.
December 4: The Economics of Sports After (?) COVID-19. With Jonathan Ernest, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics. |
