Miguel Almaguer López, MD

2nd Degree Specialist in Nephrology and Chief of Preventive Nephrology Services at Havana’s Institute of Nephrology. Dr Almaguer has received fellowships from the International Society of Nephrology and WHO-PAHO to study at Harvard Medical School and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine respectively. Almaguer is a past Vice President of the Cuban Society of Nephrology. He is an Associate Professor at the Higher Institute of Medical Sciences, Havana and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Nephrology, where he is participating in the total population Isle of Youth Study of CKD, cardiocerebral vascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus (ISYS).

Debra Evenson, JSD

Contributing Editor to MEDICC Review. Ms Evenson is an attorney and of counsel to the law firm Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman, PC. From 1980 to 1994, she was Associate Professor of Law at DePaul University College of Law. Evenson is the author of numerous books and articles about Cuban law and society, including Law and Society in Contemporary Cuba (Kluwer Law International, 2003) and Workers in Cuba: Unions and Labor Relations (Guild Law Center, 2001). She is currently collaborating on a forthcoming book about the Cuban public health system.

Miguel A. Galindo, MD

2nd Degree Specialist in Epidemiology. Dr Galindo has directed Cuba’s National Immunization Program (NIP) since 1981. He won the Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) Immunization Award (1999), and was selected by PAHO as one of Cuba’s ten most outstanding scientists (2002). He has received Cuba’s National Research Achievement Award and has three times been decorated by the Cuban Academy of Science for Distinguished Research Results. In 1999, Dr. Galindo served as advisor to the Haitian Minister of Public Health to devise the country’s first nationwide immunization program for polio, TB, measles, diphtheria, and tetanus. He is currently on a one-year sabbatical from the NIP writing a book on the history of immunization in Cuba, to be published by PAHO.

Agustín Lage, MD, PhD

2nd Degree Specialist in Biochemistry. Dr Lage has served as Director of the Center of Molecular Immunology since 1990. Prior to this, he was Vice Director of the National Institute of Oncology & Radiobiology (INOR) and Coordinator of the National Cancer Mortality Reduction Program. From 1980 to 1985, Lage was Director of INOR’s Biochemistry Department. He has served on PAHO’s Advisory Committee on Health Research and is an Assistant Professor at the Higher Institute of Medical Sciences, Havana. Lage has published over 100 scientific articles, nearly half of them in international journals of impact. He is currently researching cancer vaccines and immune system response.

Franklin Sotolongo Padrón, MD

2nd Degree Specialist in Microbiology. Dr Sotolongo is Executive Director of the Finlay Institute. From 1984 to 1988, Sotolongo was Director of Cuba’s Neisseria National Reference Laboratory. He is co-author of the Cuban meningococcal B vaccine patent, VA-MENGOCBC ®, and author of a new culture medium for Neisseria preservation. He has served as a WHO-PAHO Temporary Advisor for meningococcal disease and Phase IV vaccine evaluation and currently collaborates in WHO-sponsored clinical studies evaluating the immunogenicity of the meningococcal vaccine. He and his colleagues continue to research and develop other bacterial vaccine products.

MEDICC Review, Fall 2007, Vol 9, No 1