Todd A. Black, Ph.D. is the Executive Director for Merck's Infectious Diseases and Vaccines Basic Research group. He has worked the last 25 yrs. on the discovery and development of novel therapies for infectious diseases at Novartis, Schering-Plough and Merck. Todd and his research teams have supported the discovery and development of a variety therapies for prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, including new classes of antibiotics, antifungals for invasive infections, HIV and HCV antivirals, new classes of agents for treating and preventing recurrent C. difficile infections, in addition to vaccines to prevent prevalent respiratory and invasive infections. His team continues to lead the drive to discover and develop new approaches for the prevention and treatment of emerging pathogens including multi-drug resistant bacteria and other emerging pathogens.