An initiative of the COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE
With major support from the ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION
CONTAGION (2011) follows the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. As the fast-moving epidemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself. At the same time, ordinary people struggle to survive in a society coming apart. Starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. From director Steven Soderbergh.
Prior to the film, Dr. Martha Nason will give a presentation entitled
“Performing Scientific research in a pandemic”
“Adopting a clean, chronological and punchy approach, Soderbergh holds a steady eye on panic and chaos. It’s a disaster movie with a brain and conscience.” – TimeOut
Dr. Martha Nason is a biostatistician at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, and a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. Her work has focused on clinical trials and preclinical research into vaccines and infectious diseases, including HIV, Malaria, Zika, Ebola, and recently SARS-CoV2. She has worked with NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center since 2003 on vaccines against many different pathogens, and participated in many scientific review and advisory committees for NIAID and for the FDA. In addition, she has served as a member of the World Health Organization’s R&D Working Group on Clinical Trials since 2016. In the past year she has focused on SARS-CoV2, working as part of Operation Warp Speed’s statistical group and a member of the protocol team for several of the Covid-19 vaccines under development, as well as on the preclinical studies of the Moderna vaccine at the Vaccine Research Center. She has continued to collaborate with the WHO on the design of their multinational vaccine platform study, and supported the members of the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel in evaluating evidence on which to base their recommendations.
