People in the News October 2008
September - October, 2008 | Volume 7, Issue 5
MacArthur "genius" has Fogarty ties
Photo: MacArthur
Foundation
Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, a key figure in Fogarty's AIDS International Training and Research Program affiliation with Columbia University, was awarded a $500,000 grant by the MacArthur Foundation.
Popularly known as a "genius grant," the money is given without strings to scientists, artists and others who have the "creativity, originality and potential to make important contributions in the future."
El-Sadr is an infectious disease specialist who serves on AITRP's scientific advisory committee and who was an investigator in the Fogarty-funded Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa. She also specializes in tuberculosis, and, in addition to her professorship at Columbia, serves as chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Harlem Hospital Center.
BU honors Fogarty guest researcher
Dr. Yesim Tozan, a guest researcher in Fogarty's Division of Epidemiology and Population Studies, has won a $50,000-a-year Peter Paul Career Development Professorship for three years from Boston University, where she is an assistant professor of international health at the School of Public Health.
Previously, Tozan was with the Disease Control Priorities Project involved in studying the cost-effectiveness of a childhood antimalarial treatment, rectal artesunate, and on the use of DDT for malaria control. She also was a lead author of the U.N. Millenium Project report on malaria.
Post notes surge in global health studies
The Washington Post recently noted in a front page article the new popularity of global health courses on college campuses. http://tinyurl.com/3rwsfw
Among those quoted was Dr. James Coates, head of the UCLA Program on Global Health and a long-time Fogarty grantee. "It took something like HIV/AIDS--because it is so lethal and now that it is so treatable--to capture our attention and make us realize that there were such inequities in the world," he said.
NIAAA's Li retires; interim chief named
Dr. Ting-Kai Li, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholismsince November 2002 and a member of the Fogarty Advisory Board is retiring from federal service.
Dr. Kenneth R. Warren, (right) now the deputy, will serve as acting director while a search is conducted for Li's successor.
Keep experts home, says Africa expert
Photo: University
of Capetown
To keep promising young researchers from leaving for better jobs in the United States and Great Britain, African universities must develop a "critical mass" of expertise and scientific resources at home, says Dr. Marian Jacobs, dean of health sciences at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
She spoke before staff from Fogarty and other institutes and centers with interests in African research.
HHMI, Harvard name new executives
Photo: ©2008 by
Barbara Ries
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute named biochemist Dr. Robert Tjian (left) of the University of California, Berkeley, as its new president as of April 1. Dr. David Korn, chief scientific officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges, has been named vice provost for research at Harvard.
Grantee cited by NIDA for mentoring
Dr. Linda B. Cottler, a grantee of Fogarty's International Clinical, Operational, and Health Services Research and Training, program was honored recently by the National Institute on Drug abuse for excellence in mentoring mental health trainees in India. NIDA is a partner with Fogarty in the program.
Cottler, a professor at Washington University, was cited as "an effective and motivating teacher, creating unique resources to prepare junior scientists at home and abroad."
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