People in the News
January - February, 2009 | Volume 8, Issue 1
Zerhouni joins Gates, Lasker foundations
Former NIH Director Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni has joined the Bill and Melinda Gates Fundation as a senior fellow to help identify challenges in global health. "Doctor Zerhouni has an extraordinary record of championing breakthrough science that leads to tangible health benefits for people in need," said Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the foundation's Global Health Program. Zerhouni also has been elected to the board of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, which presents the prestigious Lasker Awards recognizing the world's leaders in basic and clinical medical research and individuals with outstanding public service.
First lady of Senegal tours NIH
Viviane Wade, the first lady of Senegal, toured the NIH Clinical Center recently. Presentations, including one by Fogarty’s Dr. James Herrington, focused on the burden of cancer in Africa, an overview of FIC and NCI, cancer control planning and affordable cervical cancer screening in Senegal.
Syrian tobacco research grantee cited
The Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies, created with a Fogarty grant in 2002, has won an award as the Best Medical College/Institute or Center in the Arab world.
The award is sponsored by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the deputy ruler of Dubai, to provide an incentive for the development of research and health education in the Arab world. The main grantee is Dr. Wasim Maziak of the University of Memphis, who heads the Center, which collaborates with Virginia Commonwealth University, Aleppo University and the Syrian Society Against Cancer. Each of three winners is awarded about $83,000.
Fogarty’s Liu featured in WHO Bulletin
Fogarty program officer Dr. Xingzhu Liu was featured in a recent issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization for his work as a “barefoot doctor” in rural China during the Cultural Revolution. The term refers to the young rural doctors who provided primary care with few medical resources at hand. In the article, Liu said short-term training in specific areas of primary and preventive health can be a model for low-income regions.
Gardner a global health ambassador
Dr. Pierce Gardner
Dr. Pierce Gardner, a medical professor at Stony Brook University and a long-time Fogarty adviser, is one of 25 leading experts named as advocacy “ambassadors” by the Paul G. Rogers Society for Global Health Research, an affiliate of Research!America.
Among other current or former Fogarty grantees or collaborators named as global health ambassadors include: Dr. Barry Beaty, Colorado State University; Dr. David Bloom, Harvard School of Public Health; Dr. Daniel G. Colley, University of Georgia; Dr. Patricia Hibberd, Tufts University; Dr. Adnan A. Hyder, Johns Hopkins University; Dr. James W. Kazura, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine; Dr. Richard R. Love, The Ohio State University; and Dr. Steven G. Reed, Infectious Disease Research Institute.
Bioethicist calls for U.S. policy change
Fogarty bioethics grantee Dr. Eric M. Meslin co-authored an article in the Jan. 3 issue of The Lancet calling for the administration to suspend a ruling from last year scrapping U.S. participation in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki that established global ethical standards for human research. Last August, the United States chose to adopt principles of the International Conference on Harmonization’s Guideline for Good Clinical Practice, which Meslin and his co-authors said is “a less morally authoritative document.”
Breman recounts role in Ebola outbreak
Fogarty Senior Scientific Advisor Dr. Joel Breman was quoted in the New York Times obituary of Dr. William T. Close, who with Breman and others, successfully fought the 1976 outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Zaire (now Congo.) Close, 84, died in Wyoming n January a week after making his last house call.
According to the Times, Breman and a colleague from CDC were flying to the country when Close overheard their discussion and asked to join in. Breman’s reminiscences were also published in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Denver Post. He was also interviewed by the BBC’s “The World”.
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