Category: News

In Malawi, where fewer than 50 pediatricians serve millions of children, there is little margin for delay—and even less margin for error.   For Dr. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, that reality has shaped her latest work, to help expand a Malawi-designed pediatric emergency training program at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) in Blantyre,...

Research highlights widespread sensitization to alpha-gal in areas where lone star ticks are common, while emphasizing the importance of symptom-based diagnosis.  Chapel Hill, NC — A new study examining blood donor samples from across the U.S. has found that nearly one in four adults in states with the highest rates...

What if some of the most promising solutions to U.S. health challenges have already been developed elsewhere? That question was at the heart of the inaugural Reciprocal Innovation Workshop, held April 13–16, 2026, in Baltimore, Maryland. Designed for emerging researchers and implementation scientists, the workshop explored how evidence-based interventions developed...

Chapel Hill, N.C. — A clinical trial designed to expand malaria protection for young children, led by Ross Boyce, MD, MSc, with the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the UNC School of Medicine, has been awarded $5.9 million from the National Institutes of Health. Co-investigators include...

On the eve of her medical school graduation, Camille Morgan paused to look back—not just on the close of a transformative chapter in Chapel Hill, but on a February spent in the busy public wards of Hospital Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru. She says that month in Lima helped her...

Jonathan J. Juliano, MD, MSPH, has been announced as the next director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases (IGHID). He will begin work in this new role on July 1. Dr. Juliano is a physician-scientist and committed global health researcher whose work focuses on understanding how infectious...

A new study co-authored by Sylvia Becker-Dreps, MD, MPH, member of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, as well as the Joan C. and Robert Huntley Professor of Family Medicine and Epidemiology, and Filemón Bucardo, PhD, a senior researcher at UNC-Chapel Hill, offers new insight into how a common intestinal...

What is the future of global health? In April, attendees of the 2026 annual conference for the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) explored possible answers to this question. The Washington, DC meeting, which assembled leaders from academia, government, the private sector, and other organizations, reflected CUGH’s commitment to...

Chapel Hill, NC — A new comprehensive scoping review led by researchers at the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases finds definitions of “persistence” in HIV pre‑exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) research vary widely across studies, making it difficult to compare outcomes, evaluate interventions, and inform public health decision‑making. If...

For Michael Motley, MD, PhD, infectious diseases is more than a specialty—it’s a field shaped by constant change and teamwork. As a physician-scientist in the Physician Scientist Training Program (PSTP) and an infectious diseases fellow, he has embraced both the clinical and research sides of medicine with equal enthusiasm. Now,...

  Infectious disease fellows and faculty celebrated graduation on June 18. Christopher Sellers, MD, director of the infectious disease fellowship program, presented diplomas to Adam Schafer, MD, PhD, (Going to Washington University), Joseph Stromberg, MD (Going to Wake Med), and Robert (RJ) Williams, MD (Staying an additional third year to...

Many people in need of mental health care end up in prisons or jails, which are ill-equipped to provide treatment. In a commentary in the North Carolina Medical Journal‘s Spring 2026 issue on mental health, Evan Ashkin, MD; Theodore Zarzar, MD; and David Rosen, MD, PhD, MSPH, discuss legal system...