March 29, 2001

NDSU Event To Feature Noted Disease Fighters

Two globe-trotting disease fighters will visit North Dakota State University in April.

The husband and wife team of virologists, Joseph McCormick and Susan Fisher-Hoch, formerly with the Centers for Disease Control, will discuss their work in the lab and in the field with some of the world's deadliest viruses. They are co-authors of "Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC." McCormick and Fisher-Hoch recently joined the faculty at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Brownsville after working on public health issues at Aga Khan University in Pakistan and the Pasteur Institute in France, and the establishment of by Fisher-Hoch of a biosafety level 4 facility in Lyon. Biosafety level 4 facilities are biologically secure laboratories where only the most contagious and virulent biological agents are studied.

A public lecture featuring the duo is scheduled for April 27 in the Century Theater in NDSU’s Memorial Union. Fisher-Hoch’s presentation, The global hunt for emerging pathogens: adventures in microbiology, is scheduled for 11 a.m. McCormick’s lecture, HIV and Ebola, new plagues from ancient places ,will be at 2 p.m. The lectures are the highlight of NDSU’s annual Hot Zone event that highlights issues in disease and microbiology.

The event will also include a "Bizarre Bazaar" that will feature exhibits and demonstrations on research and unusual science. That event, to be held in the Memorial Union’s Ballroom, will run from 1 p.m. to about 4:30 p.m.

McCormick and Fisher-Hoch have spent most of their lives tracking and fighting disease in some of the most remote areas on earth. They’ve dealt with outbreaks of bacterial meningitis, Ebola, Lassa fever, AIDS, hemorraghic fever and hepatitis C. The virologists will be available after their lectures to sign books.

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Source: Lynn Rust, (701) 231-7848, lynn_rust@ndsu.nodak.edu
Editor: Tom Jirik, (701) 231-9629, tjirik@ndsuext.nodak.edu