MurderCon is a rare opportunity for writers to participate in hands-on “for law enforcement eyes only” training, using modern testing and evidence collection tools and equipment, in workshops taught by some of the world’s leading homicide investigation experts. This incredibly detailed, cutting-edge instruction has never before been available to writers, anywhere. Until now.

Special presentation by Dr. Denene Lofland - A Microbiologist's Perspective of SARS-CoV-2 and the Spread of COVID-19. An in-depth session exploring scientific data about the virus, the current pandemic and its origin, why it made its way throughout the world so quickly, and how organisms such as SARS-CoV-2 and others, could be used as biological weapons. This is a "must attend" session.

Denene Lofland is an expert on bioterrorism and microbiology. She's managed hospital laboratories and for many years worked as a senior director at biotech companies specializing in new drug discovery. She and her team members, for example, produced successful results that included drugs prescribed to treat cystic fibrosis and bacterial pneumonia. Denene, along with other top company officials, traveled to the FDA to present those findings. As a result, those drugs were approved by the FDA and are now on the market.

Calling on her vast expertise in microbiology, Denene then focused on bioterrorism. With a secret security clearance, she managed a team of scientists who worked in an undisclosed location, in a plain red-brick building that contained several laboratories. Hidden in plain sight, her work there was for the U.S. military.

She's written numerous peer reviewed articles, contributed to and edited chapters in Bailey and Scott's Diagnostic Microbiology, a textbook used by universities and medical schools, and, as a professor, she taught microbiology to medical students at a well-known medical school. She's currently the director of the medical diagnostics program at a major university, where she was recently interviewed for a Delaware public service announcement/video about COVID-19.

Denene is a regular featured speaker at the annual Clinical Laboratory Educators Conference, and she's part of the faculty for the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners.

She was recently named a Fellow of the Association of Clinical Scientists, an elite 200-member association of top scientists from around the world that includes pathologists, clinical chemists, molecular and cell biologists, microbiologists, immunologists, hematologists, cytogeneticists, toxicologists, pharmacokineticists, clinicians, cancer researchers and other doctoral scientists who are experts in laboratory methods for the elucidation, diagnosis, and treatment of human diseases.