Description:

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern, in partnership with the Program in Global Health Studies presents the 2017 Summer Global Women's Health Lecture Series.

Nathan Shaffer, MD -- Prevention of Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission: 30 years of a public health success story, from basic science to global prevention to virtual elimination

Dr. Shaffer will review the groundbreaking clinical trials which established the science of PMTCT, elimination efforts in the US, the challenges and successes of effective implementation in developing countries, current issues, and the vision of global EMTCT (Elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis).

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Dr. Nathan Shaffer is currently an independent consultant, with 28 years of experience in HIV and PMTCT. He retired from the World Health Organization, Geneva (WHO) in 2015, where he served as the senior advisor for PMTCT in the HIV Department, from 2009-2015. In that role, he had primary responsibility for developing and supporting the WHO guidelines on ARVs for pregnant women, including the recommendations on lifelong ART for pregnant and breastfeeding women (“Option B+”). He led WHO support for the UNAIDS/PEPFAR Global Plan on the elimination of new HIV infections in children and keeping mothers alive and currently serves as the co-chair of the WHO Global Validation Advisory Committee for EMTCT (Elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis).

Prior to his work at WHO, he worked for 23 years at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Key achievements and responsibilities included his work as PI of the “short-course AZT trial” conducted in Thailand (published 1999), which catalyzed the global response on PMTCT in developing countries and led the CDC PMTCT technical team as part of PEPFAR. He is recognized as an international expert in PMTCT/EMTCT, including both scientific and implementation issues. He has worked extensively in Africa and Asia, and is the author or co-author on more than 100 peer-reviewed publications.

He obtained his MD degree from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1982, completed his internal medicine residency and board certification at Boston City Hospital in 1985 and a 2-year fellowship in epidemiology (EIS) at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1988.