Babafemi Taiwo, MBBS
Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases
Gene Stollerman Professor of Medicine
“My hope is that the EREPP open tent will empower diverse scientists to collaborate more broadly, probe deeper and reach ever higher to disarm new infectious disease threats across the world.”
Coronavirus Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) reminded the world that an infectious pathogen could strike without warning, attain pandemic status, and exert a devastating toll on human health and our civilization in a very short time. As it is certain that SARS-CoV-2, the agent of COVID-19, will not be the last pathogen with such potential, we must not only conquer it, but also mount unprecedented preparedness for future pathogen attacks in order to bend all measurable outcomes in favor of humanity. History has shown that a robust, collaborative, and adaptive research community is indispensable to defeat deadly microbes, including those still on the horizon and others, like antimicrobial resistant bacteria, that have been steadily increasing under our watch.
The birth of the Emerging and Re-Emerging Pathogens Program (EREPP) of the Infectious Diseases Division in 2020 was, no doubt, inspired by lessons from COVID-19. My hope is that the EREPP open tent will empower diverse scientists to collaborate more broadly, probe deeper and reach ever higher to disarm new infectious disease threats across the world.