Dr. Ron Dagan

Professor and Gunzburger Chair for Study of Infectious Diseases

The Faculty of Health Sciences

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Director, Pediatric Infectious Disease Unit

Soroka University Medical Center

Professor Ron Dagan is the director of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Unit at the Department of Pediatrics at Soroka University in Beer-Sheva, Israel, a position he has held since 1987. He is also Professor of Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva. His previous appointments include serving as adjunct associate professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester, New York, USA, from 1993 to 1998, and advisor for Infectious Diseases at the Israeli Ministry of Health. Professor Dagan obtained his MD degree in 1974 from the Hadassah Medical School of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. In 1982, he embarked on a 3-year Fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Rochester, in New York.

A member of several national and international advisory committees and medical and scientific associations, Professor Dagan has served as Chairman for the Advisory Committee for Infectious Diseases of the Israeli Society of Pediatrics from 1992 to 1997 and as a member of the National Vaccine and Infectious Disease Advisory Board since 1994. He is also a founding member of the World Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases (WSPID), a council member of the International Society of Infectious Disease (ISID) and a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). Professor Dagan has been involved in the World Health Organization (WHO) Working Group on Pneumococcal Nasopharyngeal Carriage and the WHO Pneumonia Radiology Working Group. He served as President of the European Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases (ESPID) from 2004 to 2006 and as President of the World Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases (WSPID) from 2006 through 2009. In 2010, Professor Dagan served as chair of the board of the International Symposia on Pneumococcus
and Pneumococcal Diseases (ISPPD).

Professor Dagan serves on the editorial board of several peer-reviewed journals, including: Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal (as an international editor); Infection; Human Vaccines; Journal of Infectious Diseases; Vaccine; and the Israel Journal of Pediatrics. During his professional career, Dagan has contributed to over 400 original articles, reviews and book chapters, and has presented more than 400 papers at national and international scientific meetings. Professor Dagan has earned international
recognition for his research, which has focused largely on the development of new conjugate vaccines, with particular emphasis on pneumococcal conjugate vaccines; the understanding of hepatitis A epidemiology and introduction of hepatitis A vaccines; the epidemiology of diseases that are preventable through vaccination; clinical aspects of vaccination against antibiotic-resistant pneumococci; the pathology of otitis media, the role of resistant organisms in otitis media and prediction of bacteriological response to various antibiotics; and the epidemiology and prevention of enteric and invasive infections in young children.