Halasa
Speaker
Natasha Halasa, MD, MPH
Craig Weaver Professor of Pediatrics Director, Vanderbilt Infection Surveillance and Prevention Research (VISPR) Program,
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Topic
Influenza Vaccine: Optimization
Strategies in Immunocompromised Hosts
This hybrid event is hosted by the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases.
If you cannot attend in person, you can join via this Zoom link. Registration is not required.
About the speaker
Dr. Halasa is the Craig Weaver Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University. Her research involves determining the burden of diarrheal and respiratory illnesses in young children and specialized populations and finding ways to reduce their burden (e.g. through vaccine, drugs, etc…).
Since 2002, Dr. Halasa has been involved in vaccine trials enrolling children from all ages, including young infants and specialized populations such as children with cancer. The vaccine trials that Dr. Halasa has been involved with in the past include influenza vaccines (both the trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine and the cold-adapted influenza vaccine), pertussis vaccines, pneumococcal, and RSV vaccines. In addition, she has the expertise in vaccine protocol development. She was the PI of a respiratory viral surveillance study in Amman, Jordan, which was funded by the Union Bank of Switzerland. Currently, Dr. Halasa is PI of the Vanderbilt site of the New Vaccine Surveillance Network initially established in 1999 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to predict the impact of potential new vaccines.
About the J. Neal and Lois Middelkamp Visiting Professorship in Pediatrics
J. Neal Middelkamp, MD, earned a medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine in 1948 and completed a residency, including a stint as chief resident in pediatrics at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in 1953. He joined the faculty at the School of Medicine in 1953 and became a professor in 1970. While in pediatrics, he was director of the department’s Division of Infectious Diseases and the Division of Ambulatory Pediatrics. He became professor emeritus in 1998.
Middelkamp and his wife, Lois, established the J. Neal and Lois Middelkamp Visiting Professorship in Pediatrics to support a pediatric lectureship in infectious diseases and advances in pediatric education for medical students, residents and pediatricians, all life-long interests of Middelkamp.