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November 8, 2011
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Greetings!
One of the best parts of our job is working with passionate, motivated Duke students who are engaged in global health. This week, the MSc-GH students are honoring World Pneumonia Day with a series of events and a fundraising campaign. On Monday, Duke undergrads will recognize World Diabetes Day with a lighting of the Duke Chapel in blue to raise awareness of this global killer, and with brief remarks from School of Medicine Chancellor Emeritus Dr. Ralph Snyderman. Please join our students in these important efforts.
DGHI's Talk of the Week: Wednesday at noon in Trent 040 by Ann Buchanan, a Duke pediatric infectious diseases faculty member at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center in Moshi, Tanzania. Her research focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of mycobacterial infections in HIV-positive children.
Finally, the 2011 Global Health Conference co-sponsored by the Consortium of Universities for Global Health begins this Sunday in Montreal. You can find conference summaries, photos and videos on the conference blog. Subscribe and stay informed.
Until next week,
Geelea Seaford and Everyone at DGHI
P.S. You can now follow DGHI on Google+. Join us here!
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Global Health Master's Students Raise Money, Awareness for World Pneumonia Day
 The newest class of Master of Science in Global Health (MSc-GH) students have banded together to help fight the world's leading infectious killer of young children - pneumonia. For World Pneumonia Day, the 2011 MSc-GH cohort is hosting a special event this Friday to raise awareness about this preventable disease and to raise money to vaccinateone child for every member of their group. This Friday at 3pm, students, faculty and staff are invited to the event, which features a screening of the BBC Health Documentary "Kill or Cure: Pneumococcal Disease," remarks from infectious disease expert Dr. Chris Woods, interactive games and prizes, and the opportunity to make a donation to vaccinate 29 children against pneumonia.  Pneumonia is the world's leading killer of children under five, claiming one young life every 20 seconds; that's more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. People are invited to donate on the Duke World Pneumonia Day 2011 website. All donations will benefit the GAVI Alliance "Give Kids a Shot" Campaign.
"The 29 members of our class hope to raise enough funds to vaccinate 29 children in the developing world against the five deadliest diseases, and we are excited to already be halfway toward our goal," said Madeline Boccuzzi, a MSc-GH student and coordinator of the event. "Raising $1,450 for the GAVI Alliance will protect these children for life and we want to mobilize the Duke community to help us in this fight!"
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Visiting Professor Seeks to Build Research Collaborations in India
The notion of collaborating to improve global health research is not new. Individuals such as Sanjay Kinra, MD, PhD, a pediatrician and epidemiologist from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, know that health disparities must be addressed through collective actions across countries. As a visiting professor at the Duke Global Health Institute through February, he's seeking to build research collaborations with Duke faculty interested in India.
Intricately weaving tales of his personal experience with a touch of humor to share his research on urban migration, child nutrition, and cardiovascular rehabilitation in India, Kinra captivated his audience in a lunchtime talk at the Duke Global Health Institute last week.
Kinra's work in India and the UK focuses on the role of early life risk factors and public health interventions in undernutrition, over-nutrition and cardiovascular disease. Illustrating the dichotomy that India has grown to embody because of its rapid economic growth, Kinra spoke of the dual burden of disease the country faces today.
"India means different things to different people. To me it's the East meeting the West - the old world growing into the new world," said Kinra. "You can see the pretty Bollywood or you can see the slums. What you also see today is a growing dual burden of disease - starvation of the poor and obesity of the rich."
Most of Kinra's research takes a life-course approach, in which he studies the individual over time to determine the processes that link disease risk to physical or social exposures during childhood, adulthood and across generations.
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DGHI Board of Advisors News
Gates Foundation Names Dr. Christopher Elias to Lead Expanded Global Development Program
 The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced that Dr. Christopher Elias has been named president of its Global Development Program. Elias is currently president and chief executive officer of PATH, a Seattle-based international nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health of people around the world. In his new position, Elias will help lead the foundation's efforts to support people in developing countries to overcome hunger, poverty, and disease.
Jack Leslie Honored by the UN Refugee Agency
 The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) will honor refugee advocate Jack Leslie, chairman of Weber Shandwick, at the organization's 60th anniversary gala next week in New York City. Leslie has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the US African Development Foundation, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid for USAID, former Chairman of the Board of USA for UNHCR and a participant in UNHCR Missions to Afghanistan, Kosovo and Tanzania.
Bill Frist Receives Humanitarian Award from National Business Aviation Association  Senator Bill Frist has received the 2011 Al Ueltschi Humanitarian Award from the National Business Aviation Association for his work delivering health, hope, and healing around the globe. From his time transplanting hearts in Tennessee to operating in war-torn Sudan as a Senator, Dr. Frist has always used aviation as a tool, enabling him to deliver health care to the most remote regions of the world. Watch a special video commemorating Sen. Frist and the importance of aviation to his humanitarianism.
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Faculty Profile: Robert Malkin
Duke Today: "Changing the World Through Medical Technology"
Position: Professor of the practice in the Biomedical Engineering Department and director of Duke-Engineering World Health
Years at Duke: 7 years at Duke
What I do at Duke is: Because I'm a professor in Biomedical Engineering, the majority of my responsibilities are classes and working with undergraduate engineering majors. I also work with undergraduates in summer experiences for hospitals within the Duke Global Health Institute and lead a small research group focused on medical technology in the developing world.
If I had $5 million, I would: work to expand Engineering World Health, which allows undergraduates to work in hospitals in the developing world. We're already in places like Honduras, Ghana, Rwanda and Cambodia and we have an enormous impact on those countries. I'd like to go to Sierra Leone and Liberia.
What I love about Duke is: For me, it's absolutely the Duke students. I'm here because I love working with the students here. My colleagues are also unbelievably talented, and it's a great opportunity to work with them.
Charlotte News & Observer: "Pouch Offers Hope for Third World"
With more than 500,000 new cases of childhood HIV a year, HIV/ AIDS remains a serious threat to the health of infants and children in the developing world. Most of these cases arise when HIV-positive mothers transmit the virus to newborns, and reducing this transmission could put a serious dent in infection rates. Help may be on the way in the form of a foil packet: a novel mechanism of drug delivery developed by engineers at Duke University.
The "Pratt Pouch," named after Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, a foil and plastic pouch similar in size to a packet of ketchup, may be a more effective means of getting newborns antiretroviral drugs shortly after birth.
"Once HIV incorporates its RNA into a host cell, there is no way (currently) to clear the virus from the body," said Robert Malkin, professor of the practice of biomedical engineering at Duke and director of the Developing World Healthcare Technology laboratory. "So if the child can get antiretroviral drugs within 24 hours, the child's body can fight off the virus."
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