The George Washington University Professor to comment on water-borne diseases

Dr. Peter Hotez from The George Washington University is available to comment on the risk of water-borne diseases as a result of the recent flooding in Pakistan.

Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, FAAP

Dr. Peter Hotez is the Walter G. Ross Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine at The George Washington University and is the president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute. Dr. Hotez's academic research focuses on vaccine development for a wide range of neglected tropical diseases around the globe.

Dr. Hotez founded the Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative (HHVI) at Sabin, a unique partnership with The George Washington University, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a vaccine to prevent the spread of human hookworm disease. In addition, he was instrumental in creating the Global Network for Tropical Neglected Diseases Control, an innovative new partnership dedicated to controlling the spread of tropical diseases in developing nations. He is also the Founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Tropical Neglected Diseases, the first online open access medical journal focused exclusively on neglected tropical diseases.

Dr. Hotez graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University in1980 with a degree in Molecular Biophysics, and obtained both his MD and PhD from the medical scientist-training program at Weill Cornell Medical College and The Rockefeller University in New York. After completing his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Hotez returned to Yale University where he served on the faculty for 12 years before joining GWU in 2000.

In 2008, Dr. Hotez was elected into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Also in 2008, Dr. Hotez was given the title of Distinguished Research Professor at GW. Dr. Hotez holds a license to practice medicine in the District of Columbia, was board certified in pediatrics in 1998, and re-certified in 2005.