With keen interest in raising awareness of the global health impact of infectious diseases, Long Wharf Theatre, in collaboration with Yale University and Connecticut United for Research Excellence (CURE), invite you to a unique event that will utilize an artistic venue as a platform for convening world class academic and industrial stakeholders to highlight basic and translational research on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), vector borne, and parasitic diseases at Yale.  Please join us for "Global Health and the Arts" at the Long Wharf Theatre on January 22nd. Click here for the Long Wharf's invitation, which includes instructions on how to register. The registration deadline is January 15th. Its genesis was a similar event which Long Wharf organized last year in connection with a one-woman Anna Deavere Smith play, "Let Me Down Easy", with which we had a tie-in co-sponsored by CURE, with a reception prior to the play that was attended by a number of people from the Connecticut life science cluster, followed by a talk-back between the director of the play and the audience. This year, the Long Wharf is highly fortunate to be hosting a world premiere of the Athol Fugard play, "Coming Home", which is set in Fugard's homeland of South Africa, and depicts a young woman who has contracted HIV/AIDS. As the plot line develops, one can perhaps better understand how this disease has impacted a country, continent, and global community. Importantly, however, the ending of the play is hopeful, based upon the way a child, or children provide continuity in life. South Africa is the epicenter of HIV/AIDS, and with this backdrop, we are organizing an ambitious event which will bring together an extraordinary group of people from Yale focused on global infectious diseases research, along with a wide range of leaders from the pharmaceutical, biotech, and vaccine development industries. The areas of discussion will include HIV/AIDS, but also feature speakers who have expertise in malaria, TB, viral and helminth infections of global significance. We have as a keynote speaker one of the true pioneers in the field of HIV/AIDS and TB treatment, Dr. Gerald Friedland, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Yale AIDS Care Program. Dr. Friedland served on the front lines in NYC during the early days of the epidemic, and has more recently devoted considerable effort on HIV/AIDS in Africa, where he has led studies on the epidemiology and integrated management of extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB). Other speakers include Robert Alpern, Dean of Yale School of Medicine, Erol Fikrig, Chief of the adult Infectious Diseases Section at Yale and a Howard Hughes Investigator (Dengue and other flaviviruses), Michael Cappello, Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Director of the Yale World Fellows Program (hookworm and soil-transmitted helminths), and Eric Rubin, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases the Harvard School of Public Health (TB). We are also planning to feature early to mid-career Yale investigators who will discuss their efforts to discover new ways to prevent and/or cure infectious diseases afflicting poor countries.  Long Wharf Theatre's artistic director, Gordon Edelstein, will lead a discussion of how HIV/AIDS has impacted the arts over the years. We are also planning on having John Puziss of Yale's Office of Cooperative Research speak about their efforts and successes in translational research and commercialization of intellectual property. The final speaker in this session will be Chris Earl, CEO of BioVentures for Global Health, who will speak on the interface between biotechnology companies, pharma, academia, and the global health donor community. The mini-symposium and reception/dinner will be followed by a performance of the play. After the performance, a moderated talk-back will have a panel of individuals to guide a discussion with the audience. The play is being directed by Gordon Edelstein and he will be on the talk-back panel providing first hand insights for the audience about how the play was brought to the stage. We have sponsorship and participation by senior level representatives from pharma, biotech and others in the life sciences, including Sanofi-Aventis, JNJ/Tibotec, Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Purdue Pharma, Yale, Achillion Pharmaceuticals, and a Foundation directed by Karen Pritzker and her husband, Michael Vlock. The pharma representatives will provide personal accounts of their companies' involvement in global health and why they are working on global health and neglected diseases. Those presenting from pharma include Roger Pomerantz, President of JNJ/Tibotec, and Allan Saul, VP and Director of Novartis' Vaccines for Global Health Institute in Siena, Italy. We've also invited Milind Deshpande, Chief Scientific Officer of Achillion Pharmaceuticals, who will serve on this panel, since his group is interested in drug development for neglected diseases, as well as Robert Sebbag, who directs the Access to Medicines Group at Sanofi-Aventis, who will discuss their work in this area.  For the moderated talk-back, we are fortunate to also have a very impressive group, led by Michael Fuchs, who is the former Chairman of HBO, and now an independent producer. Michael was involved in the production of the HBO special, "And the Band Played On," which highlighted the impact of HIV/AIDS in the arts. Others on that panel include Steven Phillips, Medical Director of ExxonMobil, who oversees the company's activities in and support of global health, and also serves as Vice Chair of the Harvard School of Public Health Unfinished Agenda in Infectious Disease Initiative. Karina Danvers, Coordinator of the CT AIDS Education and Training Center, and Dr. Nancy Angoff, the Associate Dean for Student Affairs at Yale School of Medicine and Associate Professor of Internal Medicine will also participate. Gordon Edelstein will be on the panel to discuss the play from the Director's perspective.  We hope that you are able to attend. It should be a memorable experience for all. Best Regards David Scheer  President, Scheer & Company, Inc. Vice-Chair of Long Wharf Theatre Chair, Harvard School of Public Health's The Unfinished Agenda in Infectious Diseases Michael Cappello MD Professor of Pediatrics, Microbial Pathogenesis and Epidemiology & Public Health Yale School of Medicine Director, Yale World Fellows Program Paul R. Pescatello, JD, PhD President and CEO Connecticut United for Research Excellence (CURE)