Covid-19: Biomedical Perspectives

Dr. Pavia is a Microbiologist/Immunologist and an Associate Professor at the NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine in Old Westbury, New York. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at New York Medical College. He previously worked and held research appointments at the Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake, NY, and the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research in Washington, DC. Throughout his career, he has focused his research activities on various pathogenic microbes with a particular emphasis on the disease-causing spirochetes and certain protozoan pathogens. His research has covered multiple areas including the basic microbiologic, immunologic, molecular, diagnostic and clinical aspects of Lyme disease, syphilis, malaria and toxoplasmosis. He has published widely on these areas in peer-reviewed journals, as well as given numerous research presentations of his work at national and international conferences. As a principal investigator or co-investigator, he has received research funding from the NIH, the CDC, the J.M. Foundation, and various other organizations to support his research work. He has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Microbiological Methods for the past 25 years, and has been an ad-hoc reviewer for a wide range of other scientific journals.

Dr Gurtler is a Molecular biologist with extensive industry experience and expertise in DNA analysis for the identification and typing of organisms. He is known internationally as the author of the original methodology of ribotyping. He is Advisor to Geneious (Bioinformatics software company) and previous head of Molecular Biology at Austin Health Microbiology, currently Adjunct Professor at RMIT University, Editor of Journal of Microbiological Methods, Editor of Heliyon and Series Editor of Methods in Microbiology. Dr Gurtler is currently working in collaboration with Assoc. Prof Danilla Grando on ribosome analysis of E. coli isolates and association with virulence. He visits RMIT regularly to advise on experimental methods and help PhD students use Geneious Bioinformatic software.