José Esparza

José Esparza is a Venezuelan American virologist who lives in the USA, appointed as President of the Global Virus Network since January 2016. He is known for his efforts to promote the international development and testing of vaccines against HIV/AIDS. During 17 years (till 1985) he pursued an academic career at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC), attaining positions as full professor of virology and chairman of its Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology. From 1986 to 2014 he worked continuously as a viral vaccine expert and senior public health adviser for international health policy agencies such as the World Health Organization, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. José G. Esparza is currently an adjunct professor of medicine, at the Institute of Human Virology (University of Maryland School of Medicine). He is the President of the Global Virus Network.

Esparza was born in Maracaibo in December 19, 1945. He attended both primary and secondary school at the local Jesuit Colegio Gonzaga, where he graduated in 1962.

Esparza studied medicine at the Universidad del Zulia Medical School (Maracaibo), where he obtained an M.D. in 1968. During his undergraduate teenage years, Esparza teamed up with some of his teachers in viral research studies designed to characterize a large zoonotic outbreak of Venezuelan equine encephalitis affecting people and riding beasts in the nearby Guajira region and its surroundings. He entered IVIC (Caracas) to work at as a graduate student under the guidance of Gernot H. Bergold and then moved to Houston, TX, to pursue graduate studies under the mentorship of virologist Priscilla Shaffer and attend advanced virology courses given by Joseph L. Melnick. Esparza obtained his Ph.D. degree in virology and cell biology from Baylor College of Medicine in 1974. He then returned to Venezuela to work at IVIC where he became chairman and full professor of virology in 1985. As part of a sabbatical leave Esparza was invited by the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at Duke University (Durham, N.C.) to work with Wolfgang Joklik. At Durham, Esparza applied modern methods of molecular engineering to study reoviruses. He also applied such tools to the study of rotaviruses, a leading worldwide cause of infantile diarrhea which severely affects and causes many deaths in toddlers living in developing countries like Venezuela. By this stage Esparza had attained hands-on command of many aspects of viral research techniques (i.e., virus-isolation, culture, serotyping, structure, genetic engineering and vaccine development) as well as project-management expertise while heading studies of a variety of human viral pathologies including enchephalitis, herpes, and rotaviruses. In 1986 Esparza was then recruited as a medical officer by the Division of Communicable Diseases of the World Health Organization, a position which implied worldwide supervising responsibilities of research projects involving various vector-borne viral diseases such as yellow fever, dengue, encephalitis and hemorrhagic fever. In 1988 Esparza joined the recently created WHO Global Programme on AIDS and in 1996 he was required to head the Vaccine Development Unit sponsored jointly by WHO-UNAIDS, a task he undertook until 2004. He then joined the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation(Seattle) from 2004 to 2014, first as senior adviser on HIV Vaccines, and from 2011 as senior adviser on global health and vaccines. He then moved to Washington(DC), occupying a position as adjunct professor of medicine at the Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he continues writing about conceptual aspects of HIV-vaccine development and participating in the monitoring of some of the ongoing clinical trials for HIV-vaccine.

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