One Planet, One Health

media release: The annual symposium brings together faculty, staff, clinicians, students and community members to share their global health work with campus and the wider community. The evening is co-hosted by the UW-Madison Global Health Institute (GHI) and the Office of Global Health in the School of Medicine and Public Health. This year’s symposium program will be live and live-streamed, with a reception following in the Health Sciences Learning Center atrium.

Built around the theme “One Planet, One Health,” the symposium will explore how the concept of One Health makes a difference in our lives, the life around us and the planet. It will celebrate the collaborations needed to tackle the global health challenges of our time: Addressing the determinants of health and disease. Learning from communities and colleagues. Preventing the next pandemic. Addressing climate change. Finding solutions that lead to equitable, sustainable health for all.

GHI Director Jorge Osorio, an international expert in epidemiology, virology and vaccines and professor of Pathobiological Sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine, will present the keynote address. In a panel discussion, UW experts will examine how the health of humans, animals, plants, the environment and the planet are interconnected. Poster presentations will showcase global health work across disciplines.

Our keynote speaker: GHI Director Jorge Osorio is a professor in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine. He has had a lengthy career in medical sciences, including virology, field epidemiological studies, vaccinology, antivirals and vector control programs. He helped found the Colombia-Wisconsin One Health Consortium, a joint effort between the University of Wisconsin and Universidad Nacional in Colombia that studies diseases and One Health issues. The center was recently renamed as the GHI One Health Center|Colombia and will be a model for similar centers that will be established in Western Africa and India.

Osorio also founded VaxThera, a Colombian-based company that will produce vaccines and biologicals for Colombia and the region. He was also a co-founder and chief scientific officer of Inviragen, a biotechnology company that developed a novel chimeric tetravalent dengue vaccine that recently completed successfully Phase 3 clinical trials. He also developed vaccines against chikungunya, influenza, rabies, plague and many other emerging infectious diseases.

Osorio also has served as vice president of Research and vice president of Government Affairs for the Vaccine Business Division of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. His industry career also included positions at Heska Corporation (Ft. Collins, Colorado), Merial LTD (Athens, Georgia), and Chiron-Powderject Vaccines (Madison, Wisconsin). He has more than 30 years of research and industry experience with more than 130 scientific publications in international journals and 32 patents.

The panel discussion: UW-Madison experts from across campus will discuss how their work contributes to One Health. From fields as diverse as human medicine and engineering, veterinary medicine and Indigenous wisdom, education and agriculture, panelists will showcase the wealth of knowledge needed to address the complex determinants of global health.