Rotavirus infections hospitalize 55,000 U.S. children each year and kill more than 600,000 worldwide. Roger Glass, whose work showed that an effective vaccine could keep this from happening, will discuss “Global Health in the 21st Century: Lessons from Rotavirus” March 26 at 6 p.m. in the Chapel.
Glass is the third speaker in the “Global Diseases: Voices from the Vanguard” lecture series. The four-speaker series showcases heroes in the global battle against premature death and disease and is free and open to the public.
Glass is director of the Fogarty International Center and associate director for International Research at the National Institutes of Health. His work illustrated that an effective vaccine for rotavirus could save lives and last year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new oral vaccine.
“It is a privilege to have Dr. Roger Glass visit UGA,” said Daniel G. Colley, director of UGA’s Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases. “Throughout his career Roger has merged excellence at the bench with outstanding epidemiologic skills and applied them in innovative ways to tackle the enormous challenge of worldwide diarrheal diseases of children. This has primarily involved rotavirus, a major killer of children in low- and middle-income countries, and a serious hospitalizing disease in high-income countries, but also has included a variety of other gastrointestinal illnesses.”
Glass graduated from Harvard College and received a Fulbright Fellowship to study at the University of Buenos Aires in 1967. He received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1972.