RALEIGH One of the country’s top AIDS researchers and an expert in international health will lead Duke University’s new Global Health Institute, one of several recent moves that puts the school at the forefront of HIV research.
Dr. Michael H. Merson, former director of the World Health Organization’s AIDS program and a professor at Yale University, will take over as institute director Nov. 1.
The university-wide program promises to go beyond medicine by bringing together students in engineering, business and other academic areas to address health issues worldwide.
The appointment comes on the heels of the announcement that Duke would receive $46.5 million for AIDS vaccine research from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. More than $350 million has now been given to Duke in the past 13 months for HIV and AIDS research, including grants from the National Institutes of Health.
School officials stressed the Global Health Institute would go beyond AIDS research with a special focus on the health inequalities between poor and affluent countries.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition, July 28, 2006.