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WTMA Science Lecture at ASU

March 10, 2014

Dr. Nathan Wolfe, founder and CEO of Global Viral and Metabiota, will deliver the 38th annual West Texas Medical Associates Distinguished Lectureship in Science Honoring Dr. Roy E. Moon on Tuesday, April 8, in Angelo State University’s Houston Harte University Center, 1910 Rosemont Drive.

Wolfe will speak on “Forecasting for Pandemic Prevention” at 2 p.m. and then “Exploring the Unseen World” at 8 p.m. April 8 in the University Center’s C.J. Davidson Conference Center.  Both lectures are open free to the public.

Founder and CEO of the Global Viral independent research institute, Wolfe has spent his life studying deadly viruses. He is an epidemiologist who fights worldwide disease pandemics with an unprecedented early-warning system to forecast, pinpoint and control new plagues before they spread.  He is also founder and CEO of Metabiota, a company specializing in microbiological research, products and services, and is the Larry I. Lokey Visiting Professor in Human Biology at Stanford University.

For his worldwide efforts, Wolfe has received research support totaling over $30 million in grants and contracts from the Skoll Foundation, Google, National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, National Geographic Society, Merck Research Laboratories and various branches of the U.S. Department of Defense.

With more than 80 research articles and book chapters to his credit, Wolfe’s work has been published in or covered by Nature, Science, The Lancet, PNAS, Journal of the American Medical Association, the New York Times, The Economist, Wired, Discover, Scientific American, National Public Radio, Popular Science, Seed, the New Yorker and Forbes.  His first book, The Viral Storm, was published in 2011.  He also has extensive consulting experience and has served on a number of advisory and editorial boards, including the editorial board of EcoHealth since 2004 and the Department of Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Defense Science Research Council since 2008.

Among his many honors and awards, Wolfe received the NIH International Research Scientist Development Award in 1997 and the prestigious NIH Director’s Pioneer Award in 2005.  In 2008, Popular Science recognized him as one of its “Brilliant 10,” and Rolling Stone named him one of the “100 Agents of Change” in 2009.  Also in 2009, he was chosen as a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, and he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010.  Time magazine included him in the 2011 “Time 100” as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Wolfe holds a bachelor’s degree from Stanford, and a master’s degree and doctoral degree from Harvard University.  He received a Fulbright Fellowship in 1997 and has taught previously at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California-Los Angeles.

The WTMA Lectureship honors Dr. Roy E. Moon, a longtime San Angelo obstetrician and gynecologist, who died in 1976.  He practiced for 28 years with Clinic Hospital Medical Associates, now West Texas Medical Associates.  The lectureship was established in 1976 and is underwritten by a grant to ASU from members of WTMA.

Each year, the lectureship brings a scientist of national prominence to ASU for public lectures, colloquia and informal discussions.

The selection committee is chaired by Dr. Paul Swets, dean of the ASU College of Arts and Sciences, and includes Dr. Crosby Jones, professor of biology; Dr. Toni Sauncy, associate professor of physics; Dr. John Osterhout, head of the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department; WTMA physicians, Dr. Kelly Hallmark, Dr. Colleen Heartsill and Dr. Joe Wilkinson; and retired physician Dr. Fazlur Rahman.

For more information, call the ASU College of Arts and Sciences at 325-486-6829 or go online to www.angelo.edu/wolfe.