On June 4-5, the BCU team travelled to Minneapolis for the third annual summit of the National Ebola Training and Education Center (NETEC). This two-day conference brought together representatives from the ten Regional Ebola and Special Pathogens Treatment Centers (RESPTCs) as well as officials from the CDC, WHO, ASPR and NIOSH. The summit focused on how to effectively prepare for high consequence pathogens beyond Ebola, with a specific focus on respiratory diseases including SARS, MERS-CoV and novel respiratory viruses. The BCU team participated in various seminars and workshops and shared ongoing training and research protocols in the hopes of fostering multicenter collaborations to advance the science of containment care. Our BCU-themed apparel and water bottles were the talk of the event!
On June 12, the BCU hosted a mission and vision retreat to help position ourselves for continued success beyond our current five-year federal grant. Thirty-six team members representing over a dozen groups and divisions participated in a half-day event facilitated by Laiza Otero from Organization Development & Effectiveness at Johns Hopkins.
This month, our research using fluorescent microbeads to simulate the transit of infectious particles through a clinical biocontainment unit was a featured article in Health Security. We are excited to continue to work with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to improve our understanding of safety in high level isolation units.
We are also incredibly excited to announce that Christopher Sulmonte, our former administrative resident, received his Masters of Health Administration, on May 24. He has now joined our team full-time as project administrator.
If you are interested in learning more or becoming part our team, please contact Jade Flinn (jborrom1@jhu.edu) or Brian Garibaldi (bgariba1@jhmi.edu).
