I Am CDC - Eduardo O'Neill - English

About

I've had several roles at CDC since I joined the agency 11 years ago. In one of them, I led a laboratory unit that made seed viruses for vaccines during the 2009 influenza pandemic. Now, I work as deputy to the senior advisor for laboratory science in the Office of Infectious Diseases making recomendations that improve laboratory processes.

Before coming to CDC, I spent 9 years in academia as a molecular virologist working to understand how viruses adapt or escape the immune response. While my work was exciting, I wanted to work in an environment where I could see the impact to public health on a quicker timeline. Nothing gets a quicker timeline than being in the middle of a CDC emergency response. After Hurricane Maria, I assembled a team of CDC laboratory staff that, in collaboration with the Puerto Rico Department of Health and the CDC foundation, assisted in the restoration of the Public Health laboratories by identifying and replacing damaged equipment. We established a system to ship patient samples from Puerto Rico to CDC Atlanta and State Public Health Laboratories in GA, VA and FL for testing.

I love working in an agency where every activity I engage in helps a lot of people.

If I wasn't a scientist at CDC, I would have liked to be a boxing coach in Puerto Rico. I boxed when I was younger, but I turned out to be better at fighting disease.

My name is Eddie O'Neill and I am CDC!

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https://www.cdc.gov/about/videos/IamCDC/IamCdcONeillExt/IamCdcONeill_English_EXT.wmv

Archive

Wikimedia Commons, in Wikimedia Commons

Licence or status

Public domain, as the Wikimedia Commons states it.

Rights statement

Public domain

Credit

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Who can watch

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