Join Dr. Tal Raveh, a researcher in the area of immunotherapy for cancer and infectious diseases at Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, who has prepared a lecture to explain the efforts done by the scientific community to develop ways to fight and defeat COVID19/the pandemic.

With the majority of the reporting in the media done by journalists, there has been an abundance of information distributed about the extent of the pandemic, severity of viral spreading, identifying symptoms, testing practicalities the situation in hospitals and about the public policy and regulations and their impact on everyday life and on the economy. Among all of these topics, we felt that it is important to emphasize the voice of science, communicated by scientists directly.

During the presentation, Tal will dive into the basic biology of viral infections and the immune responses that follow. She will explore PCR, antigen and antibody testing, the science behind vaccine development, and some of the current research efforts on therapeutics, including Remdesivir, in managing COVID-19!

This discussion will provide enough background so people from all fields can understand. There will also be opportunities for questions from the audience via a virtual chat.

Agenda

• 5:00-5:15pm: Welcome
• 5:15-6:00pm: Presentation
• 6:00-6:30pm: Q&A

Tal holds a B.S. in Life Science from Tel Aviv University, with a focus on microbiology. She then pursued a M.Sc. at the department of molecular genetics at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and studied commonalities between anti-viral and anti-cancer responses to Interferons, followed by a Ph.D. focused on mechanism underlying cellular suicide and their relationship to cancer formation. She then moved to the US and joined Stanford first as a postdoctoral fellow, then a researcher, became interested in cancer immunotherapy and was involved in the development of anti-CD47 as a new anti-cancer immunotherapy. Tal directed a brain cancer research team, and conducted studies using xenograft model with brain tumor samples from patients, to test that anti-CD47, a new anti-cancer immunotherapy developed in Irv Weissman’s lab. In those animal models she showed that this new immunotherapy has efficacy for treating both adult and pediatric brain tumors pre-clinical trials.

In 2012 she founded a consulting company, “Science Works”, and provided scientific consulting for discovery-stage research, including program development, proposals building, grant applications, publications, mostly in the field of stem cell biology. She then was recruited back Stanford to work with prof Weissman, the director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

As a Scientist driven to improve public education, she wrote a few pieces about COVID19 for her family, friends, community and received an overwhelmingly grateful response, indicating that people are thirsty for scientific background and fact-based data that can give them a sense of clarity in these trying times.