Summer Research Program student Alexandria Swanson discusses why Tuberculosis is such a fascinating yet complex bacterium to study.
From evolution to microbiology: A journey to understand the tuberculosis pandemic
Category: Infectious Disease
The untapped power of LGBTQ+ blood drives
Learn more about how the U.S. is handling its blood supply during COVID-19 in this blog post from a Summer Research Program participant in the Public & Global Health track.
The importance of interdisciplinary collaboration during COVID and beyond
by Arielle Smith, BA candidate in Psychological & Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, and participant in the 2021 Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program- Public & Global Health Track During the past two months, myself and the other Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program – Public and Global Health Track participants […]
No longer a death sentence: The evolution & development of HIV in the U.S.
by Marley Vogel, Cornell University ’24 and participant in the 2021 Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program- Public & Global Health Track On July 20, trainees in the Institute of Public Health Summer Research Program – Public and Global Health Track attended a captivating seminar by William G Powderly, MD. Among his many roles […]
From hospital wards to schools: the diversity of infectious disease research
In this blog post, Summer Research Program- Public & Global Health Track student Devin Diggs discusses work on antimicrobial strategies to mitigate COVID-19 among K-12 students.
Emergency Departments, Older Adults & Coronavirus Part I: What are the Geriatric Emergency Department (GED) Guidelines?
Written by Tanner Meyer, Masters Research Fellow in Aging, Class of ‘21, Friedman Center for Aging As we have written about before, ageism continues to rear its ugly head during the Coronavirus pandemic. The media has depicted older adults, ranging from age 60 to 100, as a homogeneous, frail group, destined to contract the virus. […]
COVID-19 & older adults: Time Management & self-care skills
Written by Natalie Galucia, MSW; Nancy Morrow-Howell, MSW, PhD; and Emma Swinford, MPH, MSW, Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging Embed from Getty Images Stay-at-home orders have meant that the routines of millions of people have been disrupted. To stay safe at home, many older adults have been disconnected from jobs, travel plans, grandparent obligations, […]
Interdisciplinary Collaboration Expedites PPE Innovation
By Kyle Nicholson B.S., Biomedical Engineering, 2020McKelvey School of Engineering, Washington University in St. LouisGlobal Health Student Advisory Committee Co-Chair, Global Health Center Recently, Jacaranda van Rheenen, PhD, manager of the Global Health Center connected me with Hiram Gay, MD, a radiation oncologist interested in developing emergency protective equipment for his team of radiation therapists. […]
Haiti’s public health students rise to support COVID-19 response
Written by Melissa Chapnick, RD, MS, MPH, research manager for the E3 Nutrition Lab & Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program alumna Haiti is among the most recent countries hit by COVID-19. The Haitian government moved swiftly to respond to the emerging pandemic, closing the border with the Dominican Republic and halting all incoming […]
COVID-19 lost in translation
Written by Lingzi Luo, MSW/MPH, Clinical Research Coordinator at WashU School of Medicine; Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program – Public and Global Health Track alumnus Wuhan (China) is my hometown. To me, the COVID-19 outbreak has already lasted more than two months. I did not just go through one outbreak. I went through […]
Personal reflections on COVID-19 decoded
As an older adult and a woman, I understand how leadership decisions impact those most vulnerable to COVID-19. I volunteer at a food pantry, whose clients include the homeless. In addition to hunger, we are now responding to requests for tents to help alleviate the suffering in tent encampments in St. Louis City. After listening […]
Ageism in the time of coronavirus
Written by Jeff Brandt, MSW, Brown School; Natalie Galucia, MSW; Nancy Morrow-Howell, PhD, MSW; and Emma Swinford, MPH, MSW There is no denying it: the threat of COVID-19 looms large for older adults. According to a CDC study, 80% of Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. between February 12 and March 16 occurred in adults age […]
COVID-19: Experiences and concerns of a Chinese international student
Written by Shihui Chen, MPH candidate at the Brown School When the first case of coronavirus was detected in Wuhan, China, the spread was very quick due to the population transition during the Lunar New Year. In the first few weeks, I felt angry about what the Hubei Province Government did: delete social media posts […]
Assessing surveillance and screening as tools to prepare for future zika virus epidemics in the Americas
Written by Qiao Luxi, MD candidate at Washington University in St. Louis This summer I had the opportunity to work with Professor Elizabeth Brickley at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and with collaborators in Brazil on a project assessing surveillance and screening as tools to prepare for future Zika virus (ZIKV) […]
The wonderful world of virology
Written by Eniola Kasim, BS student in medicine at University College Dublin and participant in the 2019 Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program – Public & Global Health Track As a medical student with an interest in infectious diseases, I was really looking forward to attending this seminar. The fact that tiny microorganisms such as bacteria […]
Research to eliminate lymphatic filariasis and related neglected tropical diseases
By Chinmayi Venkatram, BA candidate, University of Pittsburgh and participant in the 2019 Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program – Public & Global Health Track Dr. Gary Weil, Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, spoke to the students in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program, about the research he has […]
A passion for viruses
Written by Lauren Aycock, medical student University of Florida College of Medicine and Alumnae of the Summer Research Program- Public & Global Health Track I remember the burst of joy I felt when I was accepted to Washington University at St. Louis’ Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program. I vibrated with excitement as I […]
The journey to becoming a staph-buster
Written by Margot Palmer, undergraduate student at University of Georgia-Athens and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program Dr. Stephanie Fritz, associate professor of pediatrics, presented on the rise of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, and her recent studies on treating MRSA infections and mechanisms for resistance. She focused on the […]
Considerations for progression in science and practice related to HIV therapy
Written by Kricia Ruano, graduate student, Vanderbilt University and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program Dr. George Kyei, assistant professor—whose primary research focuses on infectious diseases, HIV latency and reservoir maintenance—gave a presentation this week during the summer research program. Dr. George Kyei was born and raised in Ghana, where he […]
Pulitzer Center participating in WashU “Global Health Week”
Written by Jon Sawyer, founding director of the Pulitzer Center, and Rebecca Kaplan, education specialist and Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Fellow at the Pulitzer Center. In the fall of 2014, Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications rescinded a speaking invitation to Michel du Cille, a three-time Pulitzer-Prize-winning photographer for the Washington Post, because […]
Challenges for field research in remote areas of Indonesia
Written by Dr. Peter Fischer, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the School of Medicine Indonesia is the world’s 4th populous country with 13,000 islands and poor access to physicians is common. Many health research projects in Indonesia are not located in hospitals or clinics of big cities, but instead are […]
Q&A with Dr. Jonathan Quick
Written by Ying-Chiang Jeffrey Lee, MPH, vice president and Ani Guruaj, president of the Global Health Student Advisory Committee Dr. Jonathan D. Quick, MD, MPH, was in St. Louis last week promoting his recently published book, “The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It.” After speaking with a group […]
Summer Research Program alumni blog – Bolutife Fakoya
Written by Bolutife Fakoya, Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program alumna During my third year of college, I struggled with the prospect of what I wanted to do after I graduated. I knew that I was interested in basic molecular biology research but I also recognized that I wanted to structure my career around existing […]
Summer Research Program alumni blog – Jeffrey Lee
Written by Jeffrey Lee, Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program alumnus I was part of the 2015 Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program cohort and placed into the lab of Dr. Herbert “Skip” Virgin, the Edward Mallinckrodt Professor and Chair at the Washington University School of Medicine, working alongside Dr. Robert Orchard to […]
Identifying tuberculosis
Written by Bailey Aaron, undergraduate in biology at Green Mountain College and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program The tuberculosis research conducted by Shabaana Khader, PhD, Associate Professor of Molecular Microbiology, reveals a unique gene signature with a phenotype for latent tuberculosis. By collecting blood samples from individuals infected with mycobacterium tuberculosis […]
The public health challenges of HIV/AIDS: a 35-year journey
Written by Ali Zuercher, undergraduate in biology at Eastern Mennonite University and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program “You cannot predict what is going to happen in medicine,” says Dr. Bill Powderly about the world of infectious disease. Prior to 1984, researchers had believed that there were no other illnesses to […]
Trash tales: how a family trip inspired me to tackle a global crisis
Written by Nidhi Bhaskar, founder of ProjectNBYouth I walked out of the towering clinic in the small rural town of Hassan, India and almost collided into a small crowd of children sprinting in the opposite direction. Deeply engaged in their game of tag, they scarcely noticed me as I leapt back to avoid being trampled. […]
Global health experts on shrinking the cure and prevention divide
The Global Health Center at the Institute for Public Health is hosting its fourth annual Global Health and Infectious Disease Conference with a focus on “Shrinking the Cure and Prevention Divide that Separates Populations from Life-Saving Drugs and Vaccines.” The Institute approached a select group of conference presenters to get their thoughts on the cure/prevention […]
Healthy People 2020 and the Sustainable Development Goals
For public health experts and practitioners, creating large-scale goals and objectives can be one way to help inspire and motivate large-scale change. Initiatives such as Healthy People 2020, created by the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Sustainable Development Goals from the United Nations, represent two attempts to set some big targets […]
Working to connect and coordinate local HIV/AIDS efforts
Written by Matthew Brown, MPH, manager of the Center for Community Health Partnership and Research at the Institute for Public Health The Center for Community Health Partnerships continues to bring together a diverse group of stakeholders working in HIV/AIDS in St. Louis. The group first met last December, and assembled again in September 2015. At […]
Saint Louis Effort for AIDS engages community through World AIDS Day event
On December 1, 2015, Saint Louis Effort for AIDS organized its annual World AIDS Day event. This year’s event was titled “Getting to Zero”: Remembering the impact of HIV/AIDS on our community, and took place at the Missouri History Museum. It included live music, exhibit booths, a names project, HIV testing and other health services, […]
PEPFAR: A policy response to the global HIV/AIDS pandemic
Written by April Houston, MSW/MPH, graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis Progress on HIV/AIDS has been substantial in the last 15 years, thanks to increased attention and funding to combat its spread. It is important to review the past to determine best practices for our present and future. The first cases of HIV […]
Access to PrEP: A “game changer” for HIV
The number of new HIV infections per year in St. Louis and nationally have not declined over the past 10 years despite the enormous amounts of money and energy spent on this issue. The medication used for PrEP, Truvada, is more than 90% effective when taken as one pill once a day. While PrEP is […]
Food Outreach helps local HIV/AIDS patients through nutrition and education
Written by Jessica Healey, marketing and event specialist at Food Outreach For more than 27 years, Food Outreach has continued to be the only nonprofit organization in the greater St. Louis area that focuses on providing vital nutritional support to low-income men, women and children with HIV/AIDS or cancer. An impassioned staff, along with 600 […]
A regional approach to improving STI care
In November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released two reports detailing the increasing rates of sexually transmitted infections in the US. As a provider of care for patients with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV, increasing rates of all STIs are a great concern to me. National STI data indicates that rates […]
Thanksgiving food safety tips from the CDC
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) offers up some key tips for Thanksgiving food safety on how to safely thaw, handle, stuff, and cook a turkey. Clostridium perfringens is the second most common bacterial cause of food poisoning, and meat and poultry account for 92% of outbreaks with an identified single food source. Read the […]
Preparedness resource guide
In conjunction with Prepared for Peril: Readiness and Recovery for Public Health Threats, the Institute prepared this guide with a variety of resources relating to the conference theme. General emergency preparedness All-Hazards Preparedness Guide, 2013 Best Practices for Communicating with the Public During an Outbreak, 2005 Clinician Outreach and Communication Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication […]
A health threat anywhere is a health threat everywhere
Written by RADM Stephen Redd, MD, director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) We issued a challenge to ourselves and to all nations of the world to make concrete pledges towards three key goals: prevent, detect and respond. We have to prevent outbreaks by […]
Global health – The next generation
Written by Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine; and keynote speaker for 2015 Global Health Week We are coming to the end of an incredible 15-year period of expansion in promoting global health. Beginning with the launch of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in […]
Unearthing the potential of soil bacteria
Dr. Dantas and his team study the ecology, evolution and transmission dynamics of microbes and their antibiotic resistance genes across multiple habitats, towards building better predictive models of resistance selection and dissemination. Specifically he has recently focused on soil bacteria and solving the problems of antibiotic resistance. Can you describe what you mean by “soil bacteria,” and some of […]
Bench to implementation in the real world
Our Global Health Center contacted speakers from it’s 2015 Global Health and Infectious Disease Conference to gain their perspectives on the event’s theme of taking research from bench to implementation. We spoke with: Daniel Colley, PhD, Professor, University of Georgia and Director, Center for Tropical and Emerging Infectious Diseases Helen Fletcher, PhD, Senior Lecturer at […]
Aging with HIV
One of the most positive features of the current era of HIV, particularly in the Western world, is the fact that patients are aging successfully. In the 1980s, when the disease was first recognized, the average survival after someone was given a diagnosis of AIDS was approximately two years; indeed, on average, the interval between […]
Studying St. Louis, sexually-transmitted infections, and superusers
Written by Ben Cooper, MPH, manager of the Public Health Data and Training Center at the Institute for Public Health St. Louis is known for many things… our beloved Cardinals, frozen custard, and toasted ravioli to name a few. Regrettably, another thing we are known for are the high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), […]
Behind the scenes at the St. Louis County Department of Health
Written by Eleanor Peters, epidemiology manager in the Division of Communicable Disease Control Services at the St. Louis Country Department of Public Health. The functions of a health department vary by region based on the priorities of the citizens it serves. Some functions are mandated by state government whereas others are considered best practices and […]
Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections call to action
In late February 2015, the Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections (GAFFI) convened thought leaders from around the globe met in Seattle, WA. The director of the Institute and its Global Health Center, Bill Powderly, was one of the speakers at this key event. Stakeholders concluded that the early detection and treatment of fungal meningitis […]
Flying in the face of infection
Infection prevention and aviation may seem like an odd couple to scientists who study germ theory and the ecology of biofilm on medical devices, but in clinical practice lessons from the flight deck may prove as important as the newest technological innovation. In today’s clinical environment the focus of infection prevention is on doing procedures […]
Ebola virus disease lessons learned
The emergence, rapid spread, and ongoing transmission of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in West Africa have taught us many lessons about this deadly disease that was virtually unknown in the developed world before 2014: EVD can cause very large, sustained epidemics. This outbreak, with 8000+ deaths and counting, is by far the worst in history for many reasons including introduction into a […]
Fostering connections among HIV/AIDS workers in the St. Louis region
On December 2, 2014, the Center for Community Health Partnerships at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis convened a meeting to bring together community groups and university researchers working in HIV/AIDS. The meeting involved short overview presentations to help familiarize the groups and individuals with one another, plus time for […]