‘Virus hunter’ to speak at UW-Madison event

Nathan Wolfe, an epidemiologist leading an effort to catch the next pandemic disease before it hits, will give the public a window into the big thinkers speaking at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Big Learning Event.

“The Virus Hunter” of National Geographic documentaries and one of TIME’s Top 100 Most Influential People in the World, Wolfe will deliver a lecture on his work from 8:30-9:45 a.m. Wednesday, June 8, in the H.F. DeLuca Forum at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. Wolfe’s talk is free and open to the public.

At the fore during a series of international human-animal disease stories — swine flu, monkey pox, West Nile virus and SARS — Wolfe has built his Global Viral Forecasting Initiative into what TIME called “the CIA of infectious disease.” Wolfe, the Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor in Human Biology at Stanford University, has more than eight years of full-time experience living and conducting biomedical research in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa developing a warning system that monitors the spillover of novel infectious agents from animals into humans.

“Just imagine the lives that could have been saved if we’d been able to forecast a pandemic like HIV/AIDS,” says Wolfe.

Wolfe’s visit is sponsored by the Big Learning Event and UW–Madison’s Global Health Initiative.