Internationally renowned virology expert Paul A. Offit, M.D., will deliver the annual S. Rexford Kennamer Distinguished Lecture, sponsored by the Montgomery Regional Medical Campus of the UAB School of Medicine. Offit will present “Unvaccinated: The Strange History of Vaccine Exemptions,” at the lecture on Thursday, March 17 at the Capital City Club in Montgomery.
Offit is the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is also the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and a professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine.
An internationally recognized expert in the fields of virology and immunology, Offit is co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq, which is recommended for the universal use in infants by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He has also published more than 150 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety.
Offit has been recognized for his accomplishments, as he is the recipient of many awards including the 2015 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching from the University of Pennsylvania, the 2013 Maxwell Finland award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and the 2012 Distinguished Medical Achievement Award from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. He’s also received the 2011 Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Biologics Industry Organization and was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Established in 1978, the Kennamer Distinguished Lecture series bring nationally recognized leaders in healthcare to Montgomery to interact with the medical, business and political community and discuss their views on important issues in medicine. Though the generosity of the late S. Rexford Kennamer, M.D., a Montgomery native and cardiologist, the lecture series was endowed in his name to ensure that it would continue for the benefit of future generations of physicians in Montgomery.
Past speakers at Kennamer Distinguished Lectures include Edward Partridge, M.D. , director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Ardis Hoven, M.D., an internal medicine and infectious disease specialist and past president of the American Medical Association.