Councilor candidate
Patrick E. Duffy, MD
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
Maryland, U.S.
Personal Statement
The ASTMH provides support, advocacy and visibility to the global health research community— I would welcome the opportunity to promote our research agenda and to support our community, if elected to serve as one of your ASTMH Councilors. As a Councilor, my emphasis would be in two areas: to increase funding for global health R&D, the dearth of which is the main obstacle to our current success; and to foster career development for the next generation of scientists, which is the only path to our future success.
My tropical disease research career began in 1989 at the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences in Thailand, where I surveyed the prevalence of typhus among Cambodian refugees with fever, under the mentorship of Bruce Innis. That formative experience taught me many lessons: Global health research gives hope to the poorest of the poor; Our impact on human health is our strongest selling point; Great mentors care about their trainees and give them the freedom to succeed on their own; Tropical disease research is international by necessity and that is one of its greatest strengths and attractions.
My service has included research positions at an array of institutions, including Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Center for Infectious Disease Research (Seattle BioMed) and University of Washington, and now the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. I have been privileged to manage large collaborative research enterprises with partners in Tanzania and now in Mali, and to collaborate with numerous for-profit entities or private-public partnerships that are advancing new interventions for global health. These experiences, in the US and overseas, in military, civilian government, private nonprofit, and academic research institutions, convince me that each part of our community is necessary for our shared success. These diverse opportunities better equip me to advocate on behalf of a broad swath of the Society’s members, and to appreciate the different purposes, strengths and needs of the various organizations and nationalities that form our community.
Mentoring has been the most rewarding aspect of my work, and the Society is vital for attracting young scientists to enter the field of global health. For years, I and my colleagues have coordinated regional training programs for young scientists in East Africa and more recently West Africa, providing short term and long term training opportunities with funding from Fogarty International Center and elsewhere. Young scientists have also been the mainstay of my research program as it has moved between institutions, with nearly 60 scientists who have pursued postgraduate or postdoctoral training under my mentorship. ASTMH is uniquely positioned to solicit support that expands training opportunities and strengthens our research efforts; for example, a postdoctoral training program that supports fellows hosted by 2 independent US laboratories could attract new skills and promote internal and external networking for the global health research community.
Our greatest obstacle is getting sufficient resources for our researchers, who can maintain the pace of discovery needed to control tropical diseases and stop new pandemics. With Ebola and Zika fresh in the public mind, the need for global health research has never been clearer; with evidence that ancient diseases like malaria and Guinea worm can be controlled or eradicated, the lasting impact of our work is made manifest. The ASTMH has a pivotal role to play, connecting the public’s existing awareness of the public health danger, with a greater awareness that our global health research community is the key to preparation and protection. My goal as Councilor would be to contribute to the Society’s advocacy for the increased resources that are needed for us to address pressing global health issues.
Summary of Volunteer/Member Roles in ASTMH
My formal role in ASTMH for more than 20 years has been as a Society member. Since attending my first ASTMH meeting in Honolulu in 1989, I have been an enthusiastic attendee at the Society’s annual meetings, which represent the greatest exposition each year on tropical medicine and global health in the world. I have organized or participated in a number of symposia at the annual meetings, and have given numerous presentations of advances made by my research group. My program has sponsored many US and international trainees and colleagues to attend the ASTMH annual meeting, recognizing this is a key opportunity to increase or retain membership of the Society, to share scientific discoveries, and to foster career development for young scientists. I have encouraged trainees in my program to join ASTMH, and among their number are several who received different recognitions, including travel awards to attend the meeting, Ben Kean fellowships to pursue clinical research electives in tropical areas, or the ASTMH postdoctoral fellowship in tropical medicine. I am a strong believer in the
AJTMH, the premiere journal for our community, and on many occasions have contributed articles or opinion pieces, or served as a reviewer for others’ manuscripts. My very first first-author paper was published in
AJTMH in 1990, and my most recent
AJTMH publication appeared earlier this year.
Biographical Information
Dr. Patrick E. Duffy is the Chief of the Laboratory of Malaria Immunology and Vaccinology at NIAID/NIH, where he is responsible for the intramural NIAID program to develop and test malaria vaccines. Before taking this position in 2009, he was Malaria Program Director at Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, and Affiliate Professor of Global Health at the University of Washington. His basic research program at NIAID seeks to understand malaria pathogenesis and immunology, conducting natural history studies of malaria-exposed or experimentally infected humans. Duffy led the international Pregnancy Malaria Initiative to develop a placental malaria vaccine; a Grand Challenges in Global Health consortium to understand immunity to severe malaria in African children; and a consortium of laboratories to identify novel vaccine targets against liver stage malaria parasites. He established the Malaria Clinical Trials Center that performs experimental malaria infections of humans in Seattle. For many years, Duffy led a Fogarty-funded training program for young East African scientists, which has been the basis in recent years to establish a similar program in West Africa.
Duffy received his medical degree from Duke University, internal medicine training at Walter Reed, and postdoctoral training in molecular vaccine development at NIH. At Duke, Duffy studied cryptococcal meningitis using animal models, under the supervision of John Perfect. During residency at Walter Reed, he spent half a year in Thailand, conducting a survey on typhus in refugee communities, with mentorship from Bruce Innis as well as Charlie Hoke. Duffy received his postdoctoral training under David Kaslow’s guidance in the Laboratory of Malaria Research, NIAID, where he gained skills in molecular parasitology and malaria vaccine development.
A hallmark of Duffy’s career has been extensive research partnering. He has a longstanding collaboration with Dr. Michal Fried, and together their most significant advance has been the first convincing description of
P. falciparum immunopathogenesis during pregnancy. Their findings illuminated a vaccine strategy to protect pregnant women, and Duffy has for years collaborated with partners in Denmark, France and elsewhere to advance placental malaria vaccine development; the first generation of placental malaria vaccines entered clinical trials in Europe this year. Duffy’s studies of severe malaria in children have required large longitudinal birth cohorts, involving longterm partnerships with scientists in Tanzania, and more recently with Prof. Alassane Dicko in Mali; these studies also required strong north-north partnerships, such as with Jake Kurtis and the Center for International Health Research in Rhode Island. As chief of NIAID’s intramural vaccine program, Duffy partners closely with Prof. Ogo Doumbo and his teams in Mali to advance malaria vaccines from concept, through product development, and on to clinical trials, including field efficacy trials. Together, the NIAID-Mali teams have established the world’s most advanced clinical development program for malaria transmission-blocking vaccines, and play a key role in field efficacy trials of whole sporozoite vaccines developed by Steve Hoffman at Sanaria, Inc. These examples are but a few of many, and highlight a commitment to collaboration to advance global health research.