James Wilson

James M. Wilson V, MD is a Christian, prayerfully led by the life of Christ in his work.

Dr. Wilson is the Founder and Executive Vice President of AscelBio and Founder and Executive Director of Praecipio International. AscelBio, a for-profit corporation, provides consulting services to its clients for infectious disease risk assessments. Praecipio International is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to enhance and improve international public health and security against biological threats by stimulating collaboration within and offering education to the international, multi-disciplinary humanitarian community.

Dr. Wilson received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, his medical doctorate from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and trained as a pediatrician at Georgetown University Medical Center. He is currently practicing pediatrics with an underserved community in the West Slope of Colorado.

Dr. Wilson was the concept, development, and current operationalization lead for the new professional discipline of operational biosurveillance, which included the creation of the Wilson-Collmann and Wilson-Infectious Disease Impact Scales (IDIS). He led the creation of the Haiti Epidemic Advisory System (HEAS) following the 2010 earthquake and led ground operations through the cholera disaster. The HEAS was the first operational instantiation of a comprehensive infectious disease forecasting center in the world. He was a Founder, Director, and the Chief Technical Officer / Chief Scientist of the Veratect Corporation in Seattle, Washington. He was the Founder and Principal Investigator of Project Argus, Chief of the Argus Research Operations Center, and Division Head of Integrated Biodefense at the Imaging Science and Information Systems Center, Georgetown University. He was the lead architect and Founder of the Biosurveillance Indication and Warning Analysis Community (BIWAC), which included CDC’s Global Disease Detection team; USDA’s Centers for Epidemiology and Animal Health (CEAH); DHS’ National Biosurveillance Integration Center; the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center; other Intelligence Community organizations; the Defense Threat Reduction Agency; and the US Strategic Command Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction. He was a member of the Department of Homeland Security National Biosurveillance Integration System (NBIS) Concept Design Review team and the first Chief of Analytic Operations at the National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC). He served as a senior advisor for biosurveillance on the National Library of Medicine’s Project Sentinel. Dr. Wilson has served as a Special Assistant to the Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction at the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (USAMRMC-TATRC), Ft. Detrick, Maryland; Visiting Scientist at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center; consultant to NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS); and research team member of the World Health Organization Tai Forest Project on Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever.

Dr. Wilson has led multiple operations centers and trained nearly 150 analysts in the discipline of operational biosurveillance, having played key operational roles in the detection, warning, or forecast of nearly 250,000 infectious disease events, crises, and disasters in nearly every country of the world including Antarctica. These activities included, but were not limited to:

- Operational biosurveillance support to the 2004 tsunami disaster response theater
- Detection of SARS laboratory accident in Taiwan (2004)
- Detection of Marburg hemorrhagic fever in Angola for the first time in history (2005)
- Detection of Streptococcus suis in swine and humans in China (2005)
- Detection of PRRS in swine in China with subsequent impact on global heparin production (2005)
- The spread of H5N1 avian influenza in Asia, Europe, and Africa (2005 and 2006)
- Detection of Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in Africa
- First forecast and detection of Rift Valley fever in East Africa (2006)
- Detection of hoof and mouth disease laboratory accident at Pirbright, UK (2007)
- First detection of melamine-contaminated baby formula via reporting of unusual renal disease in babies in China
- Detection of Reston filovirus (and Ebola relative) in the Philippines with subsequent impact on pork futures (2008)
- First detection and warning of vaccine-drifted A/H3N2 in 2007
- First team in the world to detect, recognize, and warn of the Mexico crisis, later found to be the beginning of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic
- First use of Twitter to issue warning of an international public health emergency (2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic)
- First use of an online social network (Ozmosis.com) to alert healthcare providers of an international public health emergency (2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic)
- Creation of the first comprehensive, operational infectious disease forecasting and early warning center in the world, the Haiti Epidemic Advisory System (HEAS).
- Accurate detection, warning, and forecast of the evolving 2010-2011 cholera disaster in Haiti
- First detection and warning of suspected re-emergence of Vaccine-Derived PolioVirus (VDPV) Type 1- investigation inconclusive

Congressional Testimonies:

http://www.homelandsecurity.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20080716143655-63876.pdf

http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=3b5da0a2-5b3a-463e-aed5-4b2e7ec64cbf

Publications:

Wilson JM, Kiebler C, Walters RA, Davies-Cole J. Biosurveillance Tradecraft. In: Wiley Handbook of Science and Technology for Homeland Security. John Wiley & Sons (2008).

Wilson JM, Iannarone M, Wang C. Media Reporting of the Emergence of the 1968 Influenza Pandemic in Hong Kong: Implications for Modern-day Situational Awareness. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2009 May 11.

Wilson JM, Polyak MG, Blake JW, Collmann J. A heuristic indication and warning staging model for detection and assessment of biological events. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2008 Mar-Apr;15(2):158-71. Epub 2007 Dec 20.

Wilson JM. Argus: A Global Detection and Tracking System for Biological Events. Advances in Disease Surveillance; 4:21.

Pinzon JE, Wilson JM, Tucker CJ. Climate-based health monitoring systems for eco-climatic conditions associated with infectious diseases. Bull Soc Pathol Exot. 2005 Sep;98(3):239-43. Review.

Pinzon JE, Wilson JM, Tucker CJ, Arthur R, Jahrling PB, Formenty P. Trigger events: enviroclimatic coupling of Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreaks. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2004 Nov;71(5):664-74.

Tucker CJ, Wilson JM, Mahoney R, Anyamba A, Linthicum KJ, Ebisuzaki W, Myers MF, Formenty P, Arthur R. Climatic and Ecological Context of Ebola Outbreaks. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 68(2): 147-52.

Wilson JM and CJ Tucker. Use of Remote Sensing in Epidemic Surveillance and Response. World Meteorological Organization Bulletin, 51(2): 136-9.

Symanzik, J., Gebreab, S., Gillies, R. Wilson, J. (2003): Visualizing the Spread of West Nile Virus, 2003 Proceedings, American Statistical Association, Alexandria, Virginia.

Wilson, JM. Use of Remote Sensing in Integrated Biodefense. 30th Annual International Symposium on Remote Sensing and Environment, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Wilson, JM. Use of Satellite Imagery for Epidemic Surveillance and Response. 19th International Conference on Interactive Information Processing Systems (IIPS) for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology. 83rd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting 2003, Long Beach, CA, USA.

Wilson JM, Parker MF, Hartley DM, McEntee T, Tilton EL, Thomas C, Cardwell K. Proceedings From the Integrated Research Team Workshop on the Use of Indications and Warnings for Prediction and Surveillance of Catastrophic Biological Events. US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, June 28-28, 2004.

Parker M, Emanuel P, Wilson J, Estacio P, Callahan M, Cullin D. Proceedings From the Consensus Conference on the Role of Biosensors in the Detection of Agents of Bioterrorism. Homeland Defense Journal Online, Jan 28, 2004.