Participants pose during a Global Health Summit in October 2018 at Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake. In front, from left, are Dr. Jerome Kim of the International Vaccine Institute, Seoul, South Korea; Dr. Melanie Saville of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, Oslo, Norway; Dr. Cristina Cassetti of the National Institutes of Health, NIAID, Bethesda, Maryland; summit organizers Dr. Stephen J. Thomas of Upstate Medical University and former deputy commander of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; and Dr. Marcy Blackman, viral immunity portfolio leader targeting weakened immunity in the elderly and Zika infection during pregnancy; and Trudeau Institute President Dr. Atsuo Kuki. (Photo provided by Trudeau Institute)

SARANAC LAKE — Almost a year after Trudeau Institute hosted a Global Health Summit, it and the State University of New York Upstate Medical University wrote a summary of the summit that was published in Vaccine, a peer-reviewed journal, on Sept. 9.

The summit, on responding to the expanding outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, was held in October 2018 at Trudeau Institute’s campus in Saranac Lake.

The summit had three keynote speakers: Cristina Cassetti from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Jerome Kim from the International Vaccine Institute and Melanie Saville from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness.

It sparked a series of discussion sessions to identify today’s most pressing global health trends, to identify critical obstacles to the more rapid development of biomedical solutions and to define approaches to overcome obstacles.

The summit brought together basic scientists, physician scientists and professionals from institutions experienced with identifying and developing innovative solutions to global scale infectious disease epidemics.

The report is titled “Summit Proceedings: Biomedical Countermeasure Development for Emerging Vector-Borne Viral Diseases,” and is authored by Marcia A. Blackman, Mark A. Marchionni, John Gilly, Matthew Hepburn, Bruce L. Innis, Alan D.T. Barrett, Kent E. Kester, John R. Mascola, James F. Cummings, Thomas P. Monath, M. Cristina Cassetti, Jerome H. Kim, Melanie Saville and Stephen J. Thomas.