Fogarty grantee Dr. Walter Caurioso from the University of Washington and Peru’s Cayetano Heredia University, found cell phones to be highly useful in research targeting Peru’s sex workers. Health workers must be able to communicate with the patients regarding side effects and complications of medications. Traditionally, a paper-based system was used, but Dr. Curioso tapped into Peru’s extensive mobile phone network and generated an 80% reporting success rate.
Fogarty funded tobacco research provided information critical to the recently-implemented law in Syria banning public smoking. According to grantee Dr. Wasim Maziak who is based at the University of Memphis, “The inclusion of water pipe smoking restrictions in the ban is clear evidence of our direct involvement in public policy.”
Former Fogarty trainee at Yale University, Dr. Johnson Ouma, studied tsetse fly genetics in Kenya. Dr. Ouma’s research investigated the movement and control of tsetse population, and his findings were recently published in PloS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Dr. Irmansyah was recently appointed as Indonesia’s Director of Mental Health after completing a year-long Fogarty-funded fellowship at Harvard University where he received training in genetics research.
Dr. Agnes Moses is a graduate of AITRP at the University of Witwaterstrand in South Africa. Dr. Moses helped to make tremendous strides in HIV/AIDS disease management. She organized a program aimed at reducing mother-to-child disease transmission in Malawi. She also authored articles in the journal AIDS about her work treating pregnant HIV-positive women and was honored by the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
Dr. Veronica Rajal, a clean water scientist and Professor at the National University of Argentina at Salta, was trained at UC Davis. Her work on a complex water filtration technique combining PCR and hollow fiber ultrafiltration was published in Water Research. Dr. Rajal, in addition to her work in clean water and sanitation is also working on capacity building – she is developing a master’s program in Environmental Engineering.
A team of researchers funded by AITRP and led by Dr. Quarraisha Abdul Karim from South Africa and Columbia University, found microbicide gel, when used regularly by women, to reduce the risk of HIV transmission by up to 54% in South Africa.
Dr. Ronald Gray, a Fogarty grantee working at Johns Hopkins University, found that male circumcision can reduce the risk of male HIV infection by approximately 60%. The two-year study which looked at over 5,000 men in rural Uganda is poised to be at the forefront of a “new era for HIV prevention.”
Dr. Kawengo Agot, a former AITRP trainee at the University of Washington and GRIP awardee from Kenya, became the PI on an $11 million cooperative agreement with the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs and Tuberculosis Prevention (NCHHSTP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) entitled “HIV Prevention and Care Services for Young People in Kenya.”
Thanyawee Puthanakit, a 2002 graduate of the Johns Hopkins’ AITRP, served as a scientific board member of the HIV/AIDS Treatment Program for the Thailand Ministry of Public Health and the World Health Organization.
Saul Johnson, an AITRP from South Africa trainee who completed his MS from Columbia University, participated in numerous important monitoring and evaluation studies in the Southern African region. He was an advisor and research manager for the consortium that managed the Khomanani Campaign, the South African Government’s mass media campaign directed to HIV/AIDS between 2001 and 2006. He also assisted the Global Fund to monitor HIV programs in Namibia, Swaziland, Angola, Malawi and Zimbabwe, among others.
Carlos Diaz Granados was a former AITRP trainee at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Upon his return to Colombia, he led the development for the first Evidence Based Guidelines for the Management of HIV infection in Colombia. These guidelines were endorsed by the Colombian Ministry of Social Protection (Health) and the Colombian Association of Infectious Diseases.
Lilian Ferrer is a former AITRP trainee at University of Illinois who is now in charge of the Office of International Affairs at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. Other duties include having served on the review panel for grant applications for the Chilean Ministry of Health and as a member of the scientific committee for the first Chilean Congress in Public Health.
Dr. Maria Amelia Veras of Brazil received an AITRP Fogarty scholarship to attend the UC Berkeley School of Public Health from 1999 to 2001. She is a member of the Epidemiology Advisory Board of the National STI/AIDS Program and works as a consultant for the Brazil Ministry of Health and to the Angolan National AIDS Program.
Dr. Chuan Shi joined the ICOHRTA Fogarty training program in 2009 at Harvard University. With the knowledge and skill acquired from the training, he finished a Functioning Assessment Instrument for schizophrenia in China and tested its reliability and validity in 2010.
Dr. Jean “Bill” Pape is the founding director of Groupe Haïtien d’Étude du Sarcome de Kaposi et des Infectieuses Opportunistes (GHESKIO), the world’s first HIV/AIDS clinic; Dr. Pape is a longtime NIH grantee in Haiti. GHESKIO was named the recipient of the 2010 Gates Award for Global Health. The organization has provided continuous medical care in Haiti since 1982 - never once shutting its doors or charging fees. A Haitian physician, Dr. Pape graduated from Weill Cornell Medical College in 1975 and returned to Haiti in 1979. He is an international leader in the fight against AIDS and the provision of health care for the resource- poor. In recognition of his achievements, he has received the Legion d’Honneur from the French government, the Carlos Slim 2010 global health award and has been elected a member of the U.S. Institute of Medicine.
