Category: Infectious Diseases

Ashley Wade is a medical student at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and is mentored by Ross Boyce, MD, MSc. In many parts of Sub‑Saharan Africa, malaria is still one of the main reasons children are hospitalized. In a recent study, Wade and Annika Gunderson, a UNC Epidemiology...

Lauryn Ursery is a PhD student in epidemiology studying at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, mentored by Dr. Ross Boyce. In rural Western Uganda, people living with HIV face unique health risks, including viral acute respiratory infections (ARIs) such as the flu. Ursery presented a study led by...

Omar Zepeda is a PhD student studying at the University of Costa Rica and a fellow of the Nicaraguan Emerging and Endemic Diseases (NEED) program. He is mentored by Filemon Bucardo, PhD. At the recent 4th Annual Global Health Symposium Zepeda presented his findings on the Zika and Dengue viruses...

Claudia Gaither is a PhD student in Epidemiology studying at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, mentored by Michael Emch, PhD. At the 4th Annual Global Health Scholars Symposium, Gaither talked about the relationship between malaria prevalence and proximity to mineral processing pits in northwestern Tanzania, where gold mining...

Sean Connelly shares how a small‑town upbringing, a passion for community, and early research experiences led him to pursue a career dedicated to improving global health. Now an MD‑PhD student at the UNC School of Medicine, Connelly studies malaria drug resistance in East Africa, working with international partners to support...

Artemisinin partial resistance, driven by Plasmodium falciparum K13 mutations, threatens malaria control. Zanzibar is vulnerable to the spread of artemisinin partial resistance but lacks molecular surveillance. Sean Connelly, an MD-PhD candidate, led a study with the IDEEL Lab team that sequenced samples in Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania, collected from 2022 to...

In a recent podcast, The Lone Star Tick & One Patient’s Experience With Ehrlichiosis, Dr. Ron Falk speaks with Dr. Ross Boyce, an expert in tick-borne illnesses, and Dr. Katherine Huffman-Falk, a retired nephrologist who was recently bitten by a tick. This podcast talks about what a tick-borne disease is...

Chemtai Mungo, MD, MPH, FACOG, has been awarded $2.5M over five years by the National Institutes of Health for her research focused on improving human papillomavirus (HPV) treatment outcomes in women living with HIV (WWH) in Africa. Dr. Mungo is an Assistant Professor in the UNC Department of Obstetrics and...

Researchers at the UNC School of Medicine’s International Center for the Advancement of Translational Science, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases have demonstrated the important role of human T cells in controlling RSV infection in the absence of an antibody response. Led by...

Chunyan Li is a social and behavioral researcher in the Department of Health Behavior at the Gillings School of Global Public Health applying socially innovative and community-engaged approaches to promote public health in global settings. For her dissertation, she worked with UNC Project-China to assess barriers to PrEP in the province...

HIV virus eradication is a complex health challenge due to its long-lived persistence and how it hides in latently infected cells that escape the body’s immune system. Effective HIV treatments have decreased the likelihood of someone developing AIDS, while helping individuals live long and healthy lives without transmission to sexual...

The NIAID has awarded Arlene Seña, MD, MPH, a member of the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases and professor of infectious diseases, $1.9 million to initiate a longitudinal clinical study over 16 months that will advance diagnostic product development for syphilis, with the potential for additional funding over...