Virus Hunter

The commander of the Army virology unit that battled Ebola inThe Hot Zone--and current director of Special Pathogens at the CDC--teams up with the bestselling co-author ofMind Hunterto chronicle his extraordinary thirty-year career fighting deadly viruses. Currently the head of Special Pathogens at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, C. J. Peters has been on the front lines of our biological war against hot viruses for three decades in South America, the U.S., and Africa. In Virus Hunter, he recounts his lifelong battle against these deadly and invisible agents--and the all-too-often equally dangerous bureaucratic turf wars that have at times escalated the conflict and exacerbated epidemics. From investigating Venezuelan equine encephalitis and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever to containing Ebola in Reston, Virginia, and the deadly hantavirus in the Southwestern U.S., Peters offers a fascinating array of stories about the clash between biology and bureaucracy--and the threat emerging viruses pose to our species. Written with bestselling co-author Mark Olshaker (Mind Hunter),Virus Hunteris a first person memoir by one of the leading virologists in the Ebola outbreak and a dramatic complement to the mega-bestsellerThe Hot Zone.

C. J. Peters is an international expert and consultant on emerging diseases. He has worked in the field of infectious diseases for more than three decades, having served as the chief of special pathogens at the Center for Disease Control and as chief of the Disease Assessment Division at U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Peters was the head of the unit that contained the outbreak of Ebola at Reston, Virginia, and was instrumental in establishing the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), a Bio-safety Level 4 lab. In 2000 he was named the John Sealy Distinguished University Chair in Tropical and Emerging Virology at UTMB. He lives on Galveston with his wife.