Category: News

Research capacity building is intrinsic to the work of the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases (IGHID), nurturing trainees here and around the world. Eli Arant, MD, a third-year infectious diseases fellow in the T-32 training program, represents this training at its best, moving the literature forward in an...

Ross Boyce MD, MSc, partners with Western Carolina University and Mission Hospital to lay the foundation for effective patient care, prevention and public health awareness–funded by the State of North Carolina through the N.C. Collaboratory. In September of 2022, a 10-year-old in Brevard, North Carolina, complained of intense headaches, chills, fever,...

UNC School of Medicine’s Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases has been awarded a $2.9 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish malaria genomic surveillance capacity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  Dr. Jonathan Parr is the lead PI, with Dr. Jon Juliano and...

Sylvia Becker-Dreps, MD, MPH, has been named director of the Office of Global Health Education at the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases (IGHID) and will begin her work in the role on June 1. Becker-Dreps has served as the office’s associate director since 2012. She conducts NIH-funded research...

UJMT Fogarty Global Health Fellow Camille Morgan is an MD-PhD candidate working on her PhD in epidemiology. Currently in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), her project applies epidemiological, spatial, and genomic approaches to the largest-known household study of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in Kinshasa, to understand...

The entire global health community—faculty and students alike—benefit from the exceptional diversity and wealth of experiences and perspectives brought by international scholars. And they all share one common goal—enriching the lives of others through learning. Collaborative research between Southern Medical University (SMU) and UNC Chapel Hill remains resilient, despite complex...

Dana Giandomenico, MPH, CPH, REHS, is the program manager for vector-borne diseases. She joined the Institute in June 2021, to support Drs. Ross Boyce, Emily Ciccone, and others working in Uganda. Her office is currently in the Carolina Population Center, off Franklin Street, where Dr. Boyce has an appointment. In her free...

Cherie Mellor, CRA, CPRA, a business officer with the Institute’s grants administration team, recently completed new research specialist training through the National Research Administrators Certification Council (RACC). The RACC represents the global standards for the research administration profession, promoting a culture of integrity and competency in research excellence. It is...

The Malawian Program for Mental Health Research Training (WARMHEART) is accepting applications for two-year postdoctoral fellowship positions in Malawi, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center. Administered by the UNC Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases, interested applicants are invited to attend an information session...

Hematological malignancies, including leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma, are cancers that affect the blood, bone marrow, and lymphatic system. In Malawi, these cancers account for a significant proportion of cancer cases, and their treatment requires a multidisciplinary approach. To answer this need, UNC Project Malawi, Baylor Global Hope and Kamuzu Central...

Dissertations build on multiple disciplinary perspectives with new contributions to global health knowledge and practice. Lauren Zalla’s project, guided by infectious disease professors Ada Adimora, MD, MPH, and Joe Eron, MD, is a good example. Bringing clinical expertise to Zalla’s dissertation committee, they helped her design a study that explored...

Linda James has been appointed Research Program Manager and Director of DRC Research Collaboration and Development with the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases. With a family history rooted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Linda spent six years in Kinshasa, DR Congo, where she implemented and directed multiple...

Tran Viet Ha, MD, MSc, is the in-country director of UNC Vietnam and an assistant professor in the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She’s also coordinator for the Institute’s Clinical Research Site (CRS) in Hanoi. The CRS started as a site for HIV prevention studies but has more recently...

Jonathan Parr, MD, MPH, a founding member of the UNC Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Ecology Lab (IDEEL) with the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases is conducting studies in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to understand the changing prevalence of drug resistance to malaria. Malaria...

A generous gift from Hyman and Marietta Bielsky will fund a new clinic in Malawi for reproductive health and sexually transmitted infections. The new clinic will replace a 50-year-old infrastructure for sexually transmitted disease research and care, the place where UNC’s global health work began.   Long-lived friendships are special connections with those who knew...

Erin Hoffman is the Operations Manager for the Institute’s Chapel Hill Clinical Research Site (CRS), one of four research sites supporting IGHID’s Clinical Trials Unit. She learned about HIV from two people who were living openly with the disease, and it was their inspiring stories that would later influence her career path....

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...

Friday Saidi, MBBS, MMED, is first author of two papers published in 2021, that received Scientific Achievement Awards at UNC Malawi. The papers include: Term gravid uterus in a congenital umbilical hernia: a case report, published in the Journal of Medical Case Reports. Contributing IGHID authors include: Maganizo Chagomerana, PhD, Lameck Chinula, MD,...

“We indeed made history,” said Tran Viet Ha, MD, MSc. “UNC Vietnam is one of 30 foreign organizations among nearly 500 foreign organizations in Vietnam honored to be awarded certificates of merit by the president of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations, recognizing our significant contributions to the economic development,...

An Interview With Brian Bramson Brian Bramson was finishing his internal medicine residency at UNC in 2004. He planned to join the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, but as the time approached, he realized he was conflicted. He really liked clinical infectious diseases and decided do a fellowship. He had also...