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February 06, 2001 Report of the Director

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Public Health Service
National Institutes of Health
John E. Fogarty International Center
for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences

Minutes of the Advisory Board
Forty-seventh Meeting

 

Table of Contents

1. DHHS, NIH, and FIC Personnel Announcements
2. FIC Budget
3. FIC Programs and Initiatives
4. Regional Activities
5. Activities of FIC Staff Members

I. DHHS, NIH, and FIC Personnel Announcements

Tommy G. Thompson, Governor of Wisconsin since 1986, has been confirmed by the Senate to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services. He replaces Dr. Donna Shalala, who has served as Secretary for almost eight years. Dr. Shalala has accepted appointment as President of the University of Miami of Florida, a post she will assume on June 1.

Dr. Martin Myers has been named Director of the National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO). Dr. Myers is a herpes virologist and teacher who served as NVPO's Acting Director from February 2000-October 2000, and as Deputy Director from March 1999-February 2000. The NVPO is charged with coordinating, facilitating, and providing leadership for the overall National Vaccine Program.

Dr. Neal Lane, the President's Science and Technology Advisor and White House Science and Technology Policy Director since 1993, has returned to Rice University as the first University Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Dr. Gerald Fischbach, Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) since 1998, will leave NIH to become Columbia University's Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Audrey Penn, NINDS Deputy Director, will serve as Acting Director of the Institute while a search for a new director is underway.

Dr. John Ruffin has been named the first Director of NIH's newly authorized Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The Center will conduct and support research, training, dissemination of information, and other programs about minority health conditions. Dr. Ruffin served as Director of the Center's predecessor, the NIH Office for Research on Minority Health, from the time of its creation in 1990.

Dr. Paul Sieving will become the second Director of the National Eye Institute in late spring. Dr. Sieving, who replaces Dr. Carl Kupfer, is currently the Paul R. Lichter Professor of Ophthalmic Genetics and Director of the Center for Retinal and Macular Degeneration at the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center.

Dr. Mary Leveck has been named Deputy Director and Director of Extramural Activities of the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR). Dr. Leveck was formerly Associate Director for Scientific Programs and Director of NINR's Division of Extramural Activities.

Dr. Griffin Rogers became Deputy Director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) on January 1. Dr. Rogers was previously Chief of NIDDK's Molecular and Hematology Branch. He succeeds Earl Laurence, who retired in December 2000.

Mr. Bruce Butrum joined FIC in January as Grants Management Officer, replacing Ms. Silvia Mandes, who retired from Government service in December. Mr. Butrum comes to the Center from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), where he served as Chief Grants Management Officer of the Heart Team.

Dr. Pierce Gardner, formerly Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, joined FIC on February 1 as Senior Advisor for Clinical Research and Training. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Gardner's major academic interests have been in the areas of clinical medicine (especially immunization issues), international health, and medical education. At FIC, he will play a key role in ensuring that the Center's current and future programs address clinical training, better positioning U.S. efforts to find solutions to a variety of global health problems.

Dr. James Lavery joined FIC in October as a bioethicist in the Division of Advanced Studies and Policy Analysis. Dr. Lavery received his Ph.D. in Medical Science/Bioethics at the University of Toronto and comes to the Center from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where he was a postdoctoral research fellow in applied ethics and health policy. Aside from conducting original research and policy analysis related to ethical issues in international research, he will provide consultation and education on bioethics issues within FIC and NIH, and with other FIC partners in the United States and the developing world.

Ms. Minerva Rojo will join FIC on February 12 as Director of the Division of International Relations (DIR). Ms. Rojo comes from the Department of State where she has held a number of positions, most recently as Acting Deputy of the Office of Environmental Policy. Among her efforts at State, she has served as a senior advisor on chemicals issues and environmental health concerns. She has negotiated bilateral and multilateral agreements and provided guidance for the recently negotiated Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.t

Ms. Susan Bettendorf, FIC Grants Management Specialist since 1992, left the FIC in January to join the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) Office of Communications and Public Liaison as a Writer-Editor (Medical Sciences and Website Management). Ms. Bettendorf was instrumental in implementing the introduction of the electronic council book for use by FIC Advisory Board members in the review of grant and fellowship applications.

Ms. Katherine Chantry, FIC Budget Officer since 1999, left the Center in December to join Commerce One, a global e-commerce company, where she will be involved in business development.

Mr. Robert Eiss, who served as Director of the FIC Division of Advanced Studies and Policy Analysis (DASPA) and prior to that as Director of FIC's Office of International Science Policy and Analysis, left FIC in December to become Director of Programs, Research, Budget and Evaluation in the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President. In this capacity, he is responsible for the development of policy and budget recommendations in support of the national drug control strategy. This includes the management of in-house and contracted research programs on illicit drug consumption and consequences, the preparation of a consolidated Federal drug control budget, and development of a system of performance measures to monitor the effectiveness of demand and supply reduction strategies. Dr. Karen Hofman is serving as Acting Director of DASPA.

Ms. Sylvia Funk, Chief of the FIC International Services Branch (ISB) and NIH Immigration Officer, retired in December after almost 20 years of Government Service. Ms. Funk began her FIC career in 1981 as a participant in the NIH STRIDE Program. Under this program, she worked and received on-the-job training in FIC's then-International Coordination and Liaison Branch, now DIR, while completing an undergraduate degree. She returned to FIC in 1989 as a management analyst in ISB, a position she held until she became Branch Chief in 1995.

Ms. Silvia Mandes, FIC's first Grants Management Officer (GMO), retired from Government service in December. Ms. Mandes joined FIC in 1976 and was named GMO in 1981. Her leadership and support were invaluable in developing FIC's extramural programs, taking them from a portfolio of individual fellowships to a comprehensive program of individual and institutional awards to combat global health threats.

II. FIC Budget

Fiscal Year 2001

On December 21, 2000, the President signed the Consolidated Appropriation Act, 2001. This Act, which provides appropriations for Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies, includes $20.313 billion for NIH, an increase of $2.5 billion or 14 percent over fiscal year 2000. Within the total appropriation, $18.068 billion is designated for non-AIDS activities and $2.245 billion for AIDS activities. The Act provides for the following:

• The transfer of $5.8 million from NIH to the Office of the Secretary to support the newly established Office for Human Research Protection (OHRP).

• A $25 million across-the-board reduction in administrative and related expenses for the Departments of Labor, HHS, and Education. NIH's share of the reduction is $8.7 million.

For FIC, the fiscal year 2001 appropriation is $50,482,000 (appropriation of $50,514,000 less FIC's share of the transfer for the OHRP - $11,000 and the reduction in administrative expenses - $21,000). This represents an increase of $7,034,000 or 16.2 percent over fiscal year 2000. Of the total FIC appropriation, $34,328,000 is designated for non-AIDS activities, an increase of $5,284,000 and $16,154,000 for AIDS activities, an increase of $1,750,000. The additional funds for non-AIDS extramural activities will be used as follows:

• $650,000 (total funding - $1,559,000) to expand the International Maternal and Child Health Research and Training program;
• $244,000 (total funding - $1,747,000) to expand the International Training and Research Program in Environmental and Occupational Health;
• $140,000 (total funding - $1,370,000) to expand the International Training Program in Medical Informatics;
• $880,000 (total funding - $5,240,000) to expand the Fogarty International Research Collaboration Awards program.
• $400,000 (total funding - $1,242,000) to expand the International Research Scientist Development Award program;
• $650,000 to initiate the International Studies on Health and Economic Development program;
• $1,000,000 to initiate the International Clinical and Operational Research and Training Award program;
• $562,000 (total funding - $345,000) reduction in the Senior International Fellowships and International Research Fellowships programs for the continued phase out of these fellowship programs (FY 2001 is the last year of funding).

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III. FIC Programs and Initiatives

Second Global Forum on Bioethics in Research

The second Global Forum on Bioethics in Research took place in Bangkok, Thailand on October 14-15, 2000. The meeting was hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), working with FIC and number of other NIH institutes, the CDC, the United Kingdom's Medical Research Council (MRC), the South African MRC and other international agencies. Most of the 140 participants from 40 countries were from the developing world. The meeting focused on capacity building for ethics review in developing countries, the benefit of the process and products of research to the host country, and the impact of international and national intellectual property rights. The next forum will be held in The Gambia in October 2001.

International Tobacco Control Research and Training Initiative

FIC has initiated an effort to address the impact of tobacco on health in the developing world. A Request for Applications (RFA) for international research and training in tobacco and health, which emphasizes behavioral and social issues contributing to the initiation of smoking, will be issued this fiscal year. The program is being developed in coordination with NCI, NIDA, NICHD, and other NIH institutes involved in research on tobacco-related diseases; CDC, which is responsible for the Government's global surveillance in tobacco; and WHO, which has launched its Tobacco-Free Initiative. The intent is to build capacity in the developing world in epidemiological and biobehavioral research, prevention, treatment, communications, and policy research. The program will support collaborative protocols and U.S.-based training of low- or middle-income country scientists and health professionals. The level of specialization in any given international program would vary based on the strengths of the collaborating institutions. The program would reflect the need for transdisciplinary teams of experts to contend with the tobacco epidemic, linking various specializations. A colloquium was held with scientists from low-and middle-income countries as an ancillary session to the 10th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in order to hear perspectives on needs and opportunities for collaboration.

Report on WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control

FIC hosted a meeting of the Trans-NIH Tobacco Group and NIH IC International Representatives at which Dr. Thomas Novotny, Director of the DHHS Office of International and Refugee Health, addressed the status of the development of WHO's Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC). The intent of the FCTC is to reduce the impact and halt the growth of the global tobacco epidemic.

Stigma Research Initiative:

FIC will host a stigma conference in September that will focus on ways to combat the cross-cutting issue of stigma in this country and in the developing world. FIC staff is planning this conference in consultation with a trans-NIH committee and a panel of experts that is currently being formed. The burden of stigma due to disease will worsen significantly as the incidence of such marginalizing illnesses as HIV/AIDS and major depression increase. Individuals with stigmatized diseases are less likely to seek medical attention, causing higher morbidity and mortality among these "silently sick" populations, and communicable diseases like HIV/AIDS spread more easily through populations with untreated individuals. In order to address some of these crucial issues, FIC plans to issue an RFA for stigma research for funding in FY 02.

MULTILATERAL INITIATIVE ON MALARIA (MIM)

MIM Grantee Symposium

In its role as Secretariat of the MIM, FIC organized a symposium of grantees funded by MIM at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) in Houston, Texas in October. The Symposium included presentations by principal investigators from South Africa, Nigeria, Mali, Kenya and Ghana. The MIM also held a one-day Grant Writing and Peer Review Workshop at the ASTMH for malaria researchers from endemic countries.

Symposium "Mortality, Morbidity and Malaria

The Role of Anemia": In order to encourage collaborations between malaria researchers and hematologists, FIC, in its role as MIM Secretariat, worked with NIAID and NHLBI to organize a Symposium on Malarial Anemia at the American Society for Hematology meeting in San Francisco in December.

Management-Training Program for African Research Institute Leaders:

The MIM secretariat organized a one-day meeting in Oxford, U.K. to discuss steps to support a proposed management-training program for African research institute leaders. Participants included representatives of U.S and foreign government agencies, academic organizations and medical research councils in Europe and Africa.

International Clinical and Operational Research and Training Award (ICORTA)

FIC, in collaboration with NIMH, NIA, and NIDA, will issue an RFA in February for a program to develop multidisciplinary international training and research programs in clinical and operational research. The program will emphasize mental health, aging, complementary and alternative medicine, and drug abuse in the first issue of the RFA. The long-term goals of the program are to build global clinical and operational research capacity and collaborations in an effort to better understand, investigate, control, prevent, treat, and manage a range of global health problems expected to impact countries as part of the anticipated future global burden of disease. Awards are intended to strengthen global capacity to design and conduct clinical and operational research necessary to characterize disease burdens, to devise and evaluate practical and affordable therapeutic or preventive interventions, and to help developing nations contribute to and benefit from international efforts to apply new discoveries to clinical and public health practice. FIC expects to issue a similar RFA for FY 2002 funding focused on global infectious disease challenges, including HIV/AIDS.

International Bioethics Education and Career Development Award

Four awards were made to U.S. institutions under the International Bioethics and Career Development Award program. Two programs will focus on Africa and one on Latin America; three programs will offer a curriculum of short courses at the NIH Clinical Center; and two will include internships at WHO. In addition, three planning grants were provided to two South African universities and the University of Chile to enable them to further develop their programs and revise their applications for a re-competition of this program in FY 02.

International Research Scientist Development Awards (IRSDA)

Following discussions with the Advisory Board, FIC recently made a number of changes to IRSDA award provisions in order to increase program flexibility, as follows: 1) the amount of the award was increased from $200,000 to $300,000 for a project that must include two years at a foreign site and one year in the United States; 2) although a grantee must spend the required number of months at the foreign and U.S. sites, the project, and the funds, may now be spread over a five-year period instead of the current three years; 3) the amount of the award allotted to salary and benefits is increased from $50,000 to $75,000 per year. These changes were instituted in order to address concerns over the grantee's need to spend time in the United States for family and professional reasons unrelated to the fellowship, and to make the salary provisions competitive with similar NIH awards.

Ecology of Infectious Diseases:

Twelve new RO1 awards were made at the end of FY 00 from the first competition of this interagency (NIH-NSF), inter-IC (FIC, NIAID, NIEHS, NIGMS) program. FIC made three awards and co-funded all others (NSF-6, NIAID-3, NIEHS-1). Each award will support up to five years of research for up to $350,000 per year in direct costs. Because of the extraordinary response to this initiative, a modified version of last year's RFA was released at the end of January for funding in FY 02.

International Training and Research in Environmental and Occupational Health (ITREOH)

FIC has received more than 50 letters of intent in response to an RFA for the second five-year recompetition of the ITREOH, which appeared in the NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts in December. The program, co-sponsored by NIEHS, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and CDC, looks at interfaces between environmental and occupational illness and climate, infectious diseases, and injuries. It trains scientists from developing countries to deal effectively with environmental and occupational health problems through epidemiologic research (including biomarker risk assessment), environmental monitoring, engineering control, and prevention research.

International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG)

In FY 00 one of the six biodiversity consortium grants for work in Chiapas, Mexico was awarded a no-cost extension to allow investigators the opportunity to resolve a political barrier to collection of research materials. In addition, two projects were awarded competing supplements to support follow-up work on lead compounds to treat tuberculosis and leishmaniasis

Malaria Research and Training Program

Five awards were made under this program to provide research training in collaboration with African institutions in Kenya, Mali, Uganda, Senegal, and Zimbabwe. In addition, FIC is working with NIAID to develop a research training program related to malarial anemia to complement a new NIAID research program in this area. RFAs for these programs will be issued this fiscal year with awards to be made in FY 02.

Network Meetings

FIC recently convened a series of network meeting of grantees and trainees that enable grantees, trainees, and collaborating colleagues to exchange information on current projects. Network meetings were held under the AIDS International Training and Research Program, Malaria Research and Training Program, Minority International Research and Training Program, International Training and Research Program in Emerging Infectious Diseases, Actions for Building Capacity in Support of the ICIDR Program ABC/ICIDR, and International Training Program in Medical Informatics.

Science Seminars

The latest in a series of in-house Science Seminars for FIC staff on priority health issues and related activities took place on January 4, when Dr. Willo Pequegnat, Center for Mental Health Research on AIDS, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), provided a briefing on the NIMH Collaborative HIV/STD Prevention Trial, and Internet-Based HIV Prevention Technology Transfer with World NGOs. Two previous seminars were held in September and November. On September 21, AIDS-FIRCA grantees Irene Weber, Thomas Jefferson University Medical College, and Joszef Tozser, University Medical School, Debrecen, Hungary, gave a presentation on their ongoing research - specificity studies of HIV and HTLV proteases - and shared some insights into the workings of collaborative arrangements under the FIRCA . On November 15, Dr. Kate Aultman, Program Officer for Vector Biology Research, NIAID, spoke to FIC staff about the use of pesticides and public health implications.

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IV. Regional Activities

China

FIC organized and hosted a U.S.-China Policy Dialogue on Biotechnology and Biomedicine held December 4-5 at NIH. The meeting was the second in a ten-year series agreed upon by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The first policy forum in this series took place in Beijing in October 1999. Participants reviewed areas that had proved productive in past collaborations as well as new technologies that open up possibilities for cooperative research. They also considered challenges to collaboration posed by differing U.S. and Chinese policies on intellectual property rights, bioethics guidelines for the conduct of clinical research, and other areas.

Egypt

With support from the U.S.-Egypt Joint Science and Technology Fund, FIC organized three "Grant Writing and Grants Management" workshops at Helwan University in Cairo, Assiut Medical School in Assiut, and Suez Canal University in Ismailia. U.S. participants included representatives from FIC, the NIH Office of Extramural Research, N HGRI, and an extramural grantee from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Latin America and the Carribbean

Pan American Fellowship Program: The Mexican Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) and NIH established the Pan American Fellowship (PAF) Program in 1995 to support post-doctoral research and training for Mexican scientists in NIH intramural laboratories. FIC recently opened the PAF program to other qualified science and technology funding agencies, universities, research institutes, and other foundations and organizations, regional and international, in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay. These agencies will co-share training costs with NIH ICs. In addition, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) recently joined NIH in supporting scientists and researchers from lesser-developed countries in Latin America, specifically Central America, the Andean region, and the Caribbean.

Pan American Symposium on the Molecular Approach to Human Disease: Working with the Latin American Network of Biological Sciences (RELAB), the Latin American Academy of Sciences, and CONACYT, FIC organized a Pan American Symposium on the Molecular Approach to Human Disease November 2-4 in Mexico. Participants included representatives from NIH institutes and from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as scientists and graduate students from the U.S., Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama. Among the several collaborative research proposals developed during the course of the meeting was one to establish a multi-site Pan American Consortium focusing on genomic studies of cancer of the uterine cervix in Latin American populations.

India

FIC led the development of an NIH-Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) meeting of the Biomedical Research Policy Forum held October 18-20 in New Delhi, India. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss research policy issues that create barriers to cooperation between scientists in the two countries. These include dual U.S. and Indian scientific review of grants and other research activities, differing systems of human subjects protection reviews, and the need for increased sharing of biomedical research resources. As a result of the meeting, the DHHS Office of Human Research Protection agreed to review (and subsequently approved) newly issued ICMR guidelines for human subjects protection; a staff member of the NIH Center for Scientific Review will return to India to share additional information about the NIH peer review system; and FIC will develop a listing of all repositories and databases freely available to scientists around the world.

V. Activities of FIC Staff Members

Dr. Gerald Keusch discussed NIH prevention and treatment activities, reviewing evidence that supports clinical interventions in developing countries, especially in Africa, at a one-day seminar September 12 at the Rockefeller Foundation entitled "Global Practices in Clinic-based HIV Prevention and Treatment."

Dr. Keusch spoke to the Executive Board of the Inter-American Development Bank October 4 in Washington, D.C. on Implications for Development of the Human Genome Project.

Dr. Keusch gave a talk on Global Initiatives to Address Malaria as a Major Disease of Poverty at the International Conference on Health Research for Development in Bangkok, Thailand. Initiatives included the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM), Roll Back Malaria, the Gates Malaria Vaccine Initiative, and Medicines for Malaria.

Dr. Keusch led a Science and Technology Forum October 18-20 at the Indian Council for Medical Research in New Delhi, discussing ways to strengthen cooperation between U.S. medical researchers and their Indian counterparts.

Dr. Keusch attended the Tropical Medicine Interest Group meeting hosted by The Wellcome Trust on November 2 in London, England, to review research proposals in tropical medicine in developing countries.

Dr. Keusch gave the keynote speech, The Global Status of Nutrition and Infections at a Workshop on Nutrition and Oral Infectious Disease at the Forsyth Institute, Boston, Massachusetts on November 5. The objectives and outcomes of workshop include identification of future research directions and of future training and partnering opportunities.

Dr. Keusch delivered the Jesse D. Ibarra Lectureship in International Health on November 9 at the Scott and White Clinic, Texas A & M University.

Dr. Keusch attended the Association of Public Health Committee on Global Health meeting on November 12 in Boston, where he participated in a discussion of global health issues.

Dr. Keusch attended the meeting, Africa Now! A Leadership Summit to Define African Needs and Priorities, sponsored by the Harvard AIDS Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 12-14. U.S. and African leaders in international health discussed the development of a framework document entitled "Principles of Collaboration: A Guide for Global Partnerships When Confronting AIDS in Africa."

Dr. Keusch was a panelist at the Pfizer Medical Futures Forum in New York City on November 16-17. This event celebrated the recipients of Pfizer Fellows and Scholars Grants given to young physician-scientists to enable them to pursue careers in medical research. The topic for the Forum was Global Disease, Global Health.

Dr. Keusch gave the keynote address, Improving Global Public Health: A Role for all Health Professionals, at the annual Primary Care Conference of Nurse Practitioner Associates for Continuing Education November 18 in Boston.

Dr. Keusch presented a seminar on The Potential Impact of Nutritional Change on the Global Burden of Disease at the USDA Beltsville Human Nutrition Center November 28.

Dr. Keusch participated in the Call to Action Executive Board retreat in Gainesville, Virginia January 9-10, sponsored by the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. The Board discussed plans for the Call to Action Project for the next three to five years, including ideas and strategies for how the program can make the greatest contribution in the future.

Dr. Keusch spoke at a multi-institutional course "Medicine in the Tropics" January 26 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The course is designed for fourth-year medical students from several New York area schools.

Dr. Keusch taught a course on infectious diseases at the London School of Tropical Medicine January 29.

Dr. Martin Alilio attended the ASTMH annual meeting October 29-November 2 in Houston and the meeting on Social Science and Malaria at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in January.

Dr. Alilio attended the following three meetings in January to begin preparations for the first meeting of the Third MIM Pan African Conference that will be held in Arusha, Tanzania in October 2002: a meeting of the local organizing committee for the Conference; the annual meeting of the London School of Hygiene and Topical Medicine in Copenhagen; and meetings at the University of Tumain and the National Institute for Medical Research in Arusha.

Mr. Amar Bhat joined representatives of the Department of State and the National Security Council in October to give a presentation on current international health issues to a class of U.S. foreign service officers at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia.

Mr. Bhat traveled to New Delhi, India in October to participate in the NIH-ICMR Biomedical Research Policy Forum. He also made site visits to the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology and the Center for Biochemical Technology, both in New Delhi.

Dr. Joel Breman represented FIC at a meeting of the Emerging Diseases Task Force of the Committee on Science Engineering and Technology (CISET) on October 18. The task force is currently drafting a sequel to its 1996 report, "Infectious Disease-A Global Threat," which will set U.S. Government strategy to combat infectious diseases in the 21st century.

Dr. Breman gave a talk on the ITREOH at the American Public Health Association meeting November 15 in Boston. The talk was part of a symposium on sustainability of international training programs in environmental and occupational health.

Dr. Breman attended the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in October 29-November 3 in Houston.

Dr. Breman attended a CDC meeting to advise the National Center for Infectious Diseases on their plan "Global Strategies for Infectious Diseases Activities."

Dr. Breman attended a "U.S.-Mexico Border Roundtable" meeting on November 28 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina to describe current ITREOH activities in Mexico.

Dr. Breman gave a seminar at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda entitled "The Eradication of Smallpox: Triumph and Tribulation" January 9 in Bethesda.

Dr. Breman participated as a member in the meeting of the International Affairs Committee of the Infectious Diseases Society of America January 29-30 in Virginia at which he spoke on "FIC's Accomplishments and Vision for 2001 in Infectious Diseases."

Dr. Breman attended the Institute of Medicine workshop on "The Consequences of Viral Disease Eradication," held February 1-2 in Washington.

Dr. Kenneth Bridbord was an NIH representative to a meeting held in January in Nairobi, Kenya, to discuss how better to respond to HIV/AIDS in Africa. The meeting, hosted by the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, included U.S. Ambassadors or Chiefs of Mission from 12 African countries, representatives from the Department of State, CDC, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Defense, among others.

Dr. Bridbord and Dr. Mark Miller joined representatives of NIAID and NICHD in discussions at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle in January. Discussions, which included participants from the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, focused on strategies for research and public health capacity building in developing countries.

Dr. Andrea Egan organized the MIM meeting in Oxford, U.K., on the development of a management-training program for African research institute leaders.

Dr. Egan ran the MIM one-day Grant Writing and Peer Review Workshop for malaria researchers from endemic countries at the Annual Meeting of the ASTMH in Houston in November.

Dr. Egan co-chaired the Symposium "Mortality, Morbidity and Malaria: The Role of Anemia" at the American Society for Hematology meeting December 4 in San Francisco.

Dr. Karen Hofman attended the Second Global Forum on Bioethics in Research November 14-15 in Bangkok, Thailand, where she gave a presentation on the new FIC/NIH International Bioethics Education and Career Development Award.

Dr. Hofman was a member of the FIC delegation to the NIH/Indian Council of Medical Research Forum November 18-20 in New Delhi, India. She moderated a session that explored ethical barriers to scientific cooperation and reported on the second Global Forum for Bioethics in Research.

Dr. Hofman was a member of the FIC delegation to the U.S.-China Policy Forum on Biotechnology and Biomedicine, which took place December 4-5 at NIH.

Dr. Hofman represented FIC at a planning meeting for the Third Global Forum on Bioethics in Research January 22 at the U.K. MRC in London.

Dr. Allen Holt represented FIC at a meeting with Vietnamese scientists November 27-December 1 in Singapore. Participants discussed the possibility of establishing a U.S.-Vietnamese research program to study the effects of dioxin on human health.

Dr. Sharon Hrynkow participated in the Cold Spring Harbor Colloquium, "Social Venture Capital for Neglected Vaccines" October 11-12 in Cold Spring Harbor, New York.

Dr. Hrynkow represented NIH at the October 20 meeting of the CISET, chaired by the President's Science Advisory and the Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs. Intellectual property rights and emerging infectious diseases were discussed.

Dr. Hrynkow attended a meeting of the Association of Schools of Public Health Committee on Global Health November 12 in Boston.

Dr. Hrynkow represented FIC on November 14 at a meeting of science agency heads and the Director-General of UNESCO, Dr. Koichiro Matsuura. The meeting was convened by the State Department.

Dr. Hrynkow served on the selection committee for the George J. Mitchel Scholarships November 17-18 in Washington. The scholarships are supported by the U.S.-Ireland Alliance and provide one year of support for graduate study in Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland.

Dr. Richard Krause's paper "Microbes and Emerging Infections: the Compulsion to Become Something New," adapted from his lecture on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of NIAID, was published in the January 2001 issue of ASM News.

Dr. Kathleen Michels attended the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) Meeting November 4-9 in New Orleans. She gave presentations on FIC programs at two symposia focused on science in developing countries: 1) the SFN annual Social Issues Roundtable, "Neuroscience in Developed and Developing countries: Partnership or Exploitation;" and 2) the annual Symposium on Neuroscience in Developing Countries, which focused on training programs.

Dr. Mark Miller participated in a meeting of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) Financing Task Force September 21-22 at the World Bank; and attended a meeting on the Options on the Control of Influenza September 23-28 in Herssonius, Greece.

Dr. Miller delivered a talk on the "Globalization of Infectious Diseases" and chaired a session on "Cost Effectiveness of Health Interventions at the International Conference on Health Research for Development October 10-13 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Dr. Miller conducted a workshop for the International Vaccine Institute Diseases of the Most Impovershed Program on the "Economic Aspects of Shigellosis, November 6-9 in Bangkok; gave a talk on "Perspectives in Vaccine Development and Deployment" November 16 at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst; and attended a meeting of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations November 20-21 in Noordweijk, Netherlands.

Dr. Miller chaired a meeting for review of Children's Vaccine Initiative treatment protocol cost studies, December 11-12 in Geneva, Switzerland and attended a meeting of the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health December 13-14 in Washington. Dr. Miller attended a Colloquium on GIS and Vector-Borne Diseases, January 3-5 in San Diego; and participated in a meeting sponsored by the Gates Foundation in Seattle in January on developing an agenda to control human papilloma virus through vaccination.

Dr. Rachel Nugent attended the Second Annual Global Development Network Conference December 11-12 in Tokyo, Japan.

Dr. Joshua Rosenthal participated in the second annual meeting of the Vietnam-Laos ICBG meeting September 12-16 in Hanoi. In conjunction with this meeting, he delivered a lecture to an audience of Vietnamese government and academic scientists on "A History and Analysis of the ICBG" at a Symposium on the Biological Evaluation of Plants, Conservation of Resources, and Economic Development.

Dr. Rosenthal gave a talk on "Biodiversity Prospecting in Developing Countries" at the U.S. Forest Service on September 28.

Dr. Rosenthal spoke on the "Nature of Informed Consent in Bioprospecting with Indigenous Communities" and participated in a roundtable at the state-of-the-art conference "Ethno-bioprospecting and Benefits Sharing" October 20 in Athens, Georgia.

Dr. Rosenthal participated in the FIC-organized U.S.-China meeting on Biotechnology and Biomedicine, delivering talks on biodiversity and ecology of infectious diseases and co-leading a discussion on intellectual property rights.

Dr. Rosenthal presented FIC activities in informatics at the NIH-wide meeting of the Biomedicine in Information Science and Technology Committee on December 15.

Dr. Luis Salicrup, Dr. Sudha Srinivasan, and Mr. Eric Dakake participated in the "Pan American Symposium on Molecular Aspects of Human Disease," which took place November 2-4 in Cancun, Mexico. Dr. Srinivasan conducted a special session for students on state-of-the-art techniques in molecular genetics studies and served as a rapporteur for one of the three working groups. Dr. Salicrup participated on a panel on international opportunities for cooperation in biomedical research.

Dr. Barbara Sina organized and moderated a MIM symposium at the ASTMH meeting in Houston in November.

Dr. Sina is an author on the paper "The Neglected Burden of P. vivax Malaria," which has been accepted for publication by the Journal of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene for a supplement on the Global Burden of Malaria.

Dr. Sudha Srinivasan led a delegation of U.S. participants in a series of three workshops held in Egypt in September on grants management and grant writing.

Dr. Srinivasan represented FIC at the International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN) annual global meeting in Bangkok, Thailand in October. The theme of the meeting was "Research Networks in the New Milennium: Developing Country Contributions to Global Knowledge." Dr. Srinivasan gave a presentation on opportunities for collaboration through FIC and NIH.

Ms. Natalie Tomitch attended the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association November 13-16 in Boston.

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