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Friday, January 14, 2022 – ZOOM ONLY 9:15-10:15 a.m. Childhood Diarrhea after Global Rotavirus Vaccine Rollout: Meet the Caliciviruses Sylvia Becker-Dreps, MD, MPH Associate Professor Departments of Family Medicine and Epidemiology University of NC at Chapel Hill
Sylvia Becker-Dreps, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). She received a BS in Biology from Cornell University and an MD from Duke University. She completed training in Family Medicine at the Swedish-Providence Family Medicine Residency Program in Seattle, WA. After residency, she worked in a rural community health center and served as the medical director of the North Carolina Farmworker Health Program. Before returning to the academic setting, she and her family served as volunteers with the Mennonite Central Committee in Guerrero, Mexico. At UNC, she completed the NRSA Primary Care Research Fellowship and received an MPH. In 2009, she received an International Research Scientist Development Award from the Fogarty International Center to study rotavirus vaccine effectiveness in Nicaragua.
Dr. Becker-Dreps directs the UNC Program in Nicaragua and is an Associate Director of the Office of Global Health Education. She has been a practicing family physician for 20 years, currently working at the Orange County Health Department. Her research interests include childhood diarrhea, vaccine-preventable illnesses, and emerging viruses, including Zika and SARS-CoV-2. Through collaborations with the University of Nicaragua-León (UNAN-León) and the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health, she measured the impact of rotavirus immunization in Nicaragua and has contributed to understanding why rotavirus vaccines have lower effectiveness in children living in low- and middle-income countries. Since rotavirus vaccine introduction, she has investigated the new spectrum of viral, bacterial, and parasitic diarrhea etiologies in children. Her recent research has focused on elucidating the development of immunity to norovirus and sapovirus in naïve children to contribute to vaccine development efforts. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Becker-Dreps served as Co-PI at UNC of CoVPN-3006, a nation-wide clinical trial of young adults to understand whether the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine prevents transmission, and with Nicaraguan colleagues, elucidated the burden of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Nicaragua. Dr. Becker-Dreps is also Program Director of the “The Nicaraguan Emerging and Endemic Diseases (NEED)” Fogarty Global Infectious Disease Research Training Program, which builds research capacity in Nicaragua, including starting a Biomedical Sciences PhD Program at UNAN-León click here to attend virtually Zoom meeting ID: 944 5125 6972 Note: We start promptly at 9:15 am, so pease sign in on Zooma few minutes early to allow time to be ‘admitted’ from waiting room. Can’t attend on Friday? Find recordings of previous sessions posted here
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