On October 6, 2019, Drugs & Diagnostics for Tropical Diseases will be hosting our 2nd Annual Health For All Humanity night, in support of discovery of new treatments and diagnostics for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Our emcee for the evening will be veteran Emmy Award winning journalist, Peggy Pico, former reporter for KPBS and NBC San Diego. Peggy currently leads development and implementation of The San Diego Foundation Age-Friendly Communities (AFC) program and adoption of an Age- Friendly Action Plan for all cities in the San Diego region.

We are proud to announce our Passion in Science Award recipient is renowned Founder, CEO & President of Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD), Dr. Barry Bunin. Dr. Bunin founded CDD Vault, a web-based platform with over 1 million logins. The Vault is used globally across 6 continents by leading scientists to archive, mine and securely collaborate around drug discovery efforts and was designed to support humanitarian and commercial endeavors. Prior to founding CDD, Dr. Bunin was an Entrepreneur in Residence with Eli Lilly & Co. He is a co-inventor of Kyprolis™ (carfilzomib) for Injection, a proteasome inhibitor for multiple myeloma; was the founding CEO of Libraria, which created the first database of gene family wide structure activity relationships and authored two textbooks.

Our Hero in the Field Award recipient this year is esteemed Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Dr. Matthew Waxman. Dr. Waxman has worked internationally with a number of NGOs including an Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone during the 2015 epidemic. He has published research in The Lancet, determining outcomes patients co-infected with Malaria and Ebola virus, and continues to work with the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on a study of a domestic malaria drug. Dr. Waxman’s most recent work includes leading a trauma stabilization point in Northern Iraq during the Battle of Mosul in 2017. He currently serves as Medical Director of the NGO NYCMedics Global Disaster Relief which is assessing a WHO funded project in Yemen.

DDTD’s mission is to discover new treatments and diagnostics for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), a group of diseases that afflicts 1 in 6 people, or approximately 1.4 billion individuals. Worldwide, 149 countries and territories are affected by at least one NTD, resulting in approximately 57 million years of life lost due to premature disability. These diseases have been typically neglected from research and development efforts due to the perceived lack of profitability. As part of our mission, we are developing easy to use, rapid, inexpensive diagnostics to detect infections associated with NTDs. We are passionate about serving the needs of the underprivileged and believe it is important to increase public awareness of the dire need to improve global health.