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Immunology specialist Robert Kurt, assistant professor of biology, will moderate an Internet forum, “The Institut Pasteur and Its Global Public Health Network: A Response to the Threat of an Avian Influenza Outbreak in Humans” noon today in Kirby Hall of Civil Rights room 1. Lunch will be served.
Institut Pasteur is a private, nonprofit research foundation that for more than a century has been dedicated to the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases through biological research, education, and public health activities. Michèle Boccoz, director of international affairs of Institut Pasteur, will discuss the history and current activities of one of the unique facets of this institution, its international network. This global network, headquartered in Paris, links some 29 independent institutions that are united by the same values, culture, and mission: to improve worldwide public health. As a particularly pertinent example of the network’s activity, Boccoz will discuss the recently announced accord between Institut Pasteur and the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services to work together to strengthen the global capacity to detect influenza viruses that could potentially trigger a human pandemic.
Joining Boccoz and Kurt in the Internet forum will be Caitlin Hawke, executive director of Pasteur Foundation in New York, who will talk about research opportunities for American undergraduates and scientists at Institut Pasteur in Paris.
Audiences from Lafayette and Wheaton Colleges will follow up in French and English in an Internet question-and-answer session with the panelists.
For information on watching the event online, see the forum’s web site.
Organized by Mary Toulouse, director of Lafayette’s Foreign Languages and Literatures Resource Center, the event in sponsored by the Departments of Foreign Languages and Literatures and Biology, Pasteur Foundation, National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education, and the MAGPI Internet consortium.
Pasteur Foundation’s centennial exhibit is on display in the Foreign Language Resource Center, Pardee Hall room 418, and is open to the public.