Infectious Diseases

Focus: Revolutionizing pathogen detection, identification, and characterization through artificial intelligence.

• Key Topics:
  • Digital Pathology and Microscopy: Using deep learning algorithms to automatically detect pathogens (e.g., malaria parasites, TB bacilli) in blood smears, sputum samples, and tissue biopsies.
  • Genomic Interpretation: Deploying AI tools for rapid analysis of next-generation sequencing data to identify species, predict antimicrobial resistance markers, and trace transmission chains.
  • Syndromic Diagnostic Support: Developing AI-based clinical decision support systems that integrate patient symptoms, lab results, and exposure history to suggest likely diagnoses.
  • Metagenomics: Utilizing machine learning to identify known and novel pathogens directly from complex clinical samples (e.g., blood, CSF).

Focus: Using machine learning and big data to forecast, model, and mitigate the spread of infectious diseases.

• Key Topics:
  • Epidemic Forecasting: Developing ML models to predict outbreak trajectories, hotspots, and resurgence of pathogens like influenza, dengue.
  • Early Warning Systems: Integrating disparate data sources (e.g., wastewater surveillance, internet search trends, climate data, flight patterns) for early signal detection.
  • One Health Surveillance: Applying AI to analyze data from animal populations, environmental sensors, and human health records to predict zoonotic spillover events.
  • Evaluating Intervention Impact: Simulating and forecasting the effects of public health interventions (e.g., travel restrictions, lockdowns) before implementation.

Focus: Understanding how human behavior, social structures, and cultural contexts influence the spread and control of infections.

• Key Topics:
  • Vaccine Hesitancy and Uptake: Drivers of hesitancy, effective communication strategies, and building trust.
  • Adherence to Public Health Measures: Factors influencing adherence to masking, testing, isolation, and treatment.
  • Stigma: The impact of stigma (e.g., around HIV, TB, MPOX) on testing, treatment, and disclosure.
  • Social Determinants of Health: How poverty, education, housing, and racism affect vulnerability and outcomes.
  • Community Engagement: Participatory approaches to designing and implementing effective public health interventions.

Focus: The use of nucleic acid-based technologies to detect, identify, and characterize pathogens.

• Key Topics:
  • PCR and Variants: Multiplex PCR, quantitative PCR (qPCR), and digital PCR for pathogen detection and load monitoring.
  • Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS): Whole genome sequencing for outbreak investigation, transmission tracking, and resistance prediction.
  • Point-of-Care Molecular Tests: Rapid, cartridge-based systems for use in clinic or field settings.
  • Syndromic Panels: Multiplexed tests for respiratory, gastrointestinal, and bloodstream infections.
  • Bioinformatics: Tools and pipelines for analyzing complex genomic data from pathogens.

Focus: The development, use, and preservation of agents used to treat bacterial, fungal, viral, and parasitic infections.

• Key Topics:
  • Drug Discovery: The antibiotic pipeline, novel targets for new antibiotics, antifungals, and antivirals.
  • Mechanisms of Action and Resistance: How drugs work and how pathogens evolve to resist them.
  • Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics (PK/PD): Optimizing dosing strategies for efficacy and preventing resistance.
  • Clinical Use: Guidelines for empiric and targeted therapy for various syndromes.
  • Access and Stewardship: Balancing the need for access to antibiotics with the imperative to use them responsibly to curb resistance.

Focus: The causes, consequences, and interventions for infectious diarrhea, a leading cause of global childhood mortality.

• Key Topics:
  • Etiological Agents: Viral (Rotavirus, Norovirus), Bacterial (E. coli, Shigella, Vibrio cholerae, Campylobacter), and Parasitic (Cryptosporidium, Giardia).
  • Pathogenesis: Mechanisms of diarrhea production (toxin-mediated, invasive, osmotic).
  • Management: Oral rehydration therapy (ORT), zinc supplementation, and appropriate antibiotic use.
  • Prevention: Vaccination (Rotavirus, cholera), Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) initiatives, and breastfeeding promotion.
  • Global Burden: Epidemiology in low-resource settings and long-term impacts (malnutrition, developmental delays).

Focus: The study of pathogens that contaminate food, causing illness, and the systems to ensure food safety.

• Key Topics:
  • Major Pathogens: Salmonella spp., E. coli (STEC), Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter jejuni, and Vibrio species.
  • Outbreak Investigation: Traceback methods, whole genome sequencing for source identification, and cluster analysis.
  • Toxins and Virulence Factors: Bacterial toxins (e.g., Shiga toxin, staphylococcal enterotoxin) and their mechanisms of action.
  • Food Safety Systems: HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point), regulatory standards, and microbiological testing of food products.
  • Emerging Threats: Antimicrobial resistance in foodborne pathogens and the impact of global food supply chains.

Focus: Clinical management, virology, and public health aspects of HSV-1 and HSV-2 infections.

• Key Topics:
  • Clinical Manifestations: Genital herpes, orolabial herpes, herpes keratitis, whitlow, and neonatal herpes.
  • Treatment and Suppression: Antiviral therapy (acyclovir, valacyclovir), managing recurrent outbreaks, and addressing antiviral resistance.
  • Transmission and Prevention: Sexual transmission dynamics, mother-to-child transmission prevention, and condom/antiviral use as prevention.
  • Virology and Latency: Mechanisms of viral latency and reactivation in neuronal ganglia.
  • Vaccine Development: Current status and challenges in developing a prophylactic HSV vaccine.

Focus: Comprehensive coverage of the ongoing global fight against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, from basic science to public health implementation.

• Key Topics:
  • Diagnostics: Development and rollout of rapid molecular tests (e.g., GeneXpert), non-sputum-based biomarkers, and tests for latent TB.
  • Treatment: Management of drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB (MDR/XDR-TB), shorter-duration treatment regimens, and management of treatment complications.
  • Prevention: TB infection control strategies, preventive therapy for latent TB, and BCG vaccine research and new vaccine development.
  • Special Populations: TB in children, TB/HIV co-infection, and comorbidities.
  • Global Health: Epidemiology, national TB program strategies, and the WHO's End TB strategy.

This track focuses on new threats and the resurgence of known ones.

• Key Topics:
  • Pandemic Preparedness and Response
  • Pathogen Discovery (e.g., novel viruses)
  • Outbreak Investigation and Genomics (e.g., using sequencing to track spread)
  • Zika, Ebola, Mpox (formerly Monkeypox), Avian Influenza
  • Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) as a global emergency

An interdisciplinary track recognizing the connection between human, animal, and environmental health.

• Key Topics:
  • Spillover events: How animal diseases jump to humans
  • Surveillance in wildlife and livestock
  • Climate Change and its impact on disease distribution
  • Food Safety and Security

Focuses on the treatment of infected individuals.

• Key Topics:
  • Clinical Trials for new antivirals, antibiotics, and antifungals
  • Management of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock
  • Outpatient Treatment Paradigms (e.g., for COVID-19)
  • Managing Complex Infections (e.g., in immunocompromised hosts)

Critical for the prevention of infectious diseases.

• Key Topics:
  • Vaccine Development (e.g., for HIV, Universal Flu)
  • Vaccine Safety and Pharmacovigilance
  • Vaccine Hesitancy and Demand
  • Delivery Strategies and Equity (e.g., COVAX)
  • Maternal Immunization

The foundational track for identifying and understanding pathogens.

• Key Topics:
  • Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) in public health
  • Rapid Molecular Diagnostics and Point-of-Care Testing
  • Bioinformatics and Pathogen Genomics
  • Serology and Immunoassays
  • Mycobacteriology (for TB)

Often has its own dedicated track due to its global burden and elimination goals.

• Key Topics:
  • Hepatitis C: Point-of-care testing, simplifying treatment, managing advanced disease
  • Hepatitis B: Functional cure research, new antiviral therapies, prevention of vertical transmission
  • Elimination Strategies: Micro-elimination in key populations

• Key Topics:
  • HIV: Prevention (PrEP, vaccines), treatment, cure research, implementation science
  • Hepatitis B and C: Elimination goals, treatment access, mother-to-child transmission
  • Syphilis: The ongoing global surge, congenital syphilis
  • Mpox (Monkeypox): Epidemiology in new contexts

Focuses on infections acquired in healthcare settings and the fight against resistance.

• Key Topics:
  • MRSA, VRE, and other multi-drug resistant organisms
  • Clostridioides difficile Infections
  • Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practices
  • Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs: Strategies to optimize antibiotic use
  • Diagnostics for rapid detection of resistance

Focuses on diseases transmitted by insects and other parasites.

• Key Topics:
  • Malaria: Vaccine rollout (RTS,S/AS01 and R21/Matrix-M), drug resistance, elimination strategies
  • Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika: Epidemiology, control measures, vaccines
  • Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs): Schistosomiasis, Leishmaniasis, Chagas disease
  • Lyme Disease and other tick-borne illnesses

Always a high-priority area, especially post-COVID-19.

• Key Topics:
  • COVID-19: Long COVID, variants, vaccines, therapeutics
  • Influenza: Seasonality, vaccine effectiveness, pandemic potential
  • Tuberculosis (TB): Drug-resistant TB, new diagnostics and treatments
  • Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV): vaccines and monoclonal antibodies
  • Pneumonia: Etiology, prevention, and management in all age groups