Shahid Jameel to co-chair taskforce on lab-based pathogen outbreaks

Research Fellow Professor Shahid Jameel has been appointed co-chair of an international taskforce convened by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to consider trends and oversight of high-risk pathogen research.

The initiative on Creating the Framework for Tomorrow’s Pathogen Research ‘will discuss risk assessment and mitigation, including lab-based outbreak risks’. It will bring together taskforce members, policy leaders, journalists, scientists, and civic leaders at a public-facing conference in Geneva in April 2023 and will produce a summary report ‘with recommendations for a comprehensive global approach to management of extremely high-risk biological research.’

Commenting on his appointment, Shahid said,

‘I am delighted to join this international panel at a time when all assessments predict an increase in emerging pathogens. The need to work with dangerous pathogens is increasing, and so is the need to do it safely. That makes this work both exciting and important.’

Shahid Jameel is a Research Fellow of Green Templeton College, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Fellow and Principal Investigator, Project on ‘Public Health, Science and Technology in Muslim Societies’ at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, University of Oxford.

He is known for his research on hepatitis E and HIV. Previously, he has served as the Chief Executive Officer of the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance; Director of the Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University, India; and Group Leader of Virology at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB).

Green Templeton congratulates Shahid on this appointment and wishes the taskforce well.