A Fresh Look at Infectious Disease Research in Africa

  Thirty of the world’s leading infectious disease researchers gathered at Harvard on October 19th and 20th to brainstorm about the future of deadly diseases in Africa. While modern medicine and technology have diminished the threat of many infectious disease pathogens in high-income countries, infectious diseases account for more than 17 million deaths worldwide every year. A significant number of those deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Harvard has a long…

Kiwelu’s Successful Defense

Kudos to Dr. Ireen Kiwelu who, on September 24th, successfully defended her PhD thesis, “The molecular epidemiology of HIV-1 among female bar and hotel workers in Moshi, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.” Her work was supervised by Drs. Max Essex and Vladimir Novitsky at the Harvard AIDS Initiative. Born in Moshi, Tanzania, at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Kiwelu was educated in Tanzania, Denmark, England, and Norway. She returned to her hometown to…