Ticking Time Bomb: Combatting Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever – Lady Amalia Fleming lecture

The WHOCC Public Health Education & Training are excited to welcome our guest speaker, Professor Zeenah Atwan, Vice Dean of the College of Medicine and Professor of Virology at the University of Basrah, Iraq. This will be the inaugural lecture in our lecture series by women in leadership positions in public health.

For our first Lady Amalia Fleming Lecture*, she will give a talk titled "Ticking Time Bomb: Combatting Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever”
In this Lady Amalia Fleming lecture: Professor Zeenah Atwan will present her work on Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF); a collaboration between Imperial College London, Scripps Research California, and the University of Basrah. A vector-borne disease spread by ticks, CCHF is now a global public health concern. Due to climate heating, the geographic spread of the vectors and reservoirs is expanding into previously vector-free areas. The ticks are now found throughout Western and Southern European countries, and the immature ticks travelling on birds migrating from the south have been found as far north as Sweden and the UK. In July this year, a 74-year-old man died from organ failure in an isolation unit at a hospital in Madrid after contracting CCHF from a tick in Spain. Previously, CCHF was mainly of critical importance in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia, including the Middle East, but now, it is considered by the ECDC as an emerging pathogen in Europe.

Following the presentation, Celine Tabche, will interview Professor Atwan to trace her personal path as a woman in STEMM. They will discuss her leadership positions, why she chose to take them on, what challenges and opportunities she encountered, and personal lessons learned from her career. They will also talk about her hopes for the future, for a more gender-balanced and inclusive world of public health.

The lecture will be held in a hybrid format, with Imperial staff and students able to attend in person at the White City Campus, while everyone is welcome to register to attend via Zoom.

Speaker's bio:

Professor Zeenah Atwan is an inspiring woman. An alum of the University of Basrah, Iraq, and Warwick University, UK, Professor Atwan is an accomplished academic specialising in microbiology, virology, and molecular genetics. She leads two key units in the Department of Microbiology’s Research Core Laboratory at Basrah University.
Professor Atwan is committed to driving both science and scholarship forward. While completing her PhD on the ‘Interaction between antiviral-antitumour cellular protein and adenovirus’ at Warwick University she led two undergraduate virology lab groups. In Iraq, she teaches in different microbiology fields: bacteriology, medical bacteriology, genetic engineering, immunology, toxicology, and serology; as well as overseeing projects on viral infections, molecular interactions, gene silencing, and anti-cancer responses. Alongside being Vice Dean for Scientific and Postgraduate Affairs of the College of Medicine and a member of the Examining Committees of Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students at the University of Basah, Professor Atwan is Head of the Quality Assurance Committee at the School of Lifesciences, and Director of Career Development Center. In addition to authoring multiple published articles in her field of expertise, Professor Atwan has been a member of the organising committee for symposiums and conferences and the Development Committee of Medical Accreditation. Moreover, her dedication extends beyond academia; during the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Atwan volunteered her expertise to train lab staff in PCR diagnostics and led workshops on SARS-CoV2 diagnosis.

We are thrilled to have the opportunity to host such an accomplished microbiologist, educator, and researcher who shares Imperial’s and the WHOCC Public Health and Training’s passion for excellence in public healthcare education.

*This lecture series has been named in honour of Lady Amalia Fleming, the first female researcher in the Inoculation Department of St Mary’s Hospital London. Lady Amalia (1912 -1986) was a physician, microbiologist, author, resistance fighter, political prisoner, social activist, political exile, member of the Greek parliament, and Head of Amnesty International Greece. She was the second wife of Sir Alexander Fleming and founder of the Alexander Fleming Biomedical Sciences Research Center. 

Lady Amalia was truly an inspirational woman!