SPADA

Jay E. Gee, PhD

Research Biologist, Bacterial Special Pathogens Branch, DHCPP, NCEZID

United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

SPADA

BURKHOLDERIA PSEUDOMALLEI

WORKING GROUP CHAIR

Jay E. Gee earned his BS in Microbiology at Mississippi State University in 1987 and his PhD in

Biochemistry in 1992 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. He studied

antisense oligonucleotide technology in his first postdoctoral position at Baylor College of Medicine in

Houston, TX. He later studied antiviral therapy strategies using chemically modified oligonucleotides in a

vesicular stomatitis virus model at L’Institut de Génétique Moléculaire de Montpellier (The Institute of

Molecular Genetics of Montpellier) in France in a second postdoctoral position.

He has been with the CDC for almost 14 years. During his research at CDC, he designed real-time PCR

assays to identify pathogenic

Leptospira

spp. and

Burkholderia pseudomallei

and has performed

molecular genetic subtyping on a variety of pathogens such as

Bacillus

spp. (e.g.

B. anthracis

and

cereus

) and

Burkholderia

spp. (e.g.

B. pseudomallei

and

B. mallei

) in support of epidemiological case

investigations. He has served on the CDC Environmental Microbiology Work Group and serves on the

CDC Next Generation Sequencing Quality Workgroup. He is currently a subject matter expert on

Burkholderia pseudomallei

and

B. mallei

Frank F. Roberto, PhD, SM (NRCM)

Directorate Fellow, Energy and Environment

Idaho National Laboratory

SPADA BRUCELLA WORKING GROUP CHAIR

Frank Roberto received his BS and PhD in biochemistry from the University of California, Davis, and

University of California, Riverside. After a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular plant pathology at UC

Davis, he moved to the US Dept. of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, where he has conducted and

directed R&D programs ranging from biomining with acidophilic bacteria and archaea to rapid detection

of priority bacterial pathogens such as Brucella. For nearly ten years he worked closely with wildlife

biologists studying interspecies transmission of brucellosis to develop field-deployable DNA assays to

address bison and elk management issues in the Greater Yellowstone Area. He is a Specialist

Microbiologist in biological safety (National Registry of Certified Microbiologists) and has held the

Certified Biological Safety Professional (CBSP)certification (American Biological Safety Association).