QB-3: Next-Gen Insect Control for Global Health
The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District recently voted to move forward with a collaborative project for the release of Oxitec’s mosquitoes. The goal: to curb the spread of dengue and other diseases transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The Oxitec mosquitoes are male and therefore non-biting, and carry a gene that prevents female offspring from surviving to maturity. UK-based Oxitec has additional technologies in development for public health and agriculture sustainability. Join this talk to hear from Oxitec CEO Grey Frandsen, who will discuss challenges and opportunities on this exciting frontier.
Grey Frandsen was appointed the head of Oxitec’s global group in December, 2017. Prior to this role, Grey served in a number of executive and staff leadership roles in both the public and private sectors in the areas of national and public health security and in developing organizations devoted to solving large-scale public health threats globally.
Before and after September 11, 2001, Grey served in the U.S. Government in a range of leadership roles in conflicts and post-conflict stabilization operations around the world. Grey served in dozens of countries, primarily in Africa. Grey then served on the senior staff of two U.S Secretaries of State as the first Chief of Staff of the U.S. Government’s Office of Stabilization Operations. Grey also served as Senior Foreign Policy Advisor in the United States Senate with responsibility for national security and foreign and development policy oversight in areas of global public health, diplomacy, counter-terrorism, democracy and governance, and international development.
After government service, Grey served as the president of Olfactor Laboratories, Inc., a biotech startup developing a range of novel vector control technologies funded in part by the U.S. National institutes of Health (NIH) and venture funding (during which the NY Times called Grey a “mosquito mercenary”).
Grey served as an adjunct faculty member at UCSF and a senior advisor to UCSF’s Global Health Group. In 2016, Grey co-founded a new public-private partnership in the British Virgin Islands to design and test a range of new public health initiatives and social technologies to combat the spread of vector-borne diseases. During the Zika crisis in the Western Hemisphere, Grey helped stand up the Puerto Rico Vector Control Unit and assisted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control Dengue Branch. In 2017, Grey developed a new policy and engagement framework for the Caribbean Regional Public Health Agency (CARPHA) designed to bolster government resiliency in combating vector-borne diseases.
Grey is currently the chair of the global board of directors for Pilgrim Africa, an NGO implementing innovative programs to combat malaria using novel combinations of mass drug administration, vector control and rapid diagnostics methods in some of Uganda’s most malaria-endemic regions. Grey served on faculty in the Department of Emergency and Military Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of Health Science (DOD) where he authored the military’s guide for, and trained military leadership in, civilian-military coordination in conflict and crises.
