People in global health news

NAS welcomes NIAID’s Jose Ribeiro and David Lawrence Sacks

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has selected two National Institutes of Health scientists for membership in recognition of their achievements in original research. José M.C. Ribeiro, MD, PhD, is chief, vector biology section, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), whose research explores the biochemical and pharmacological diversity found in the salivary glands of blood feeding insects and ticks.

David Lawrence Sacks, PhD, is senior staff fellow, laboratory of parasitic diseases, NIAID, whose research focuses on the immunology and cell biology of leishmanial infections and the biology of Leishmania parasites within hosts and sand-fly vectors. This research may have indirect relevance to both tuberculosis and malaria. Previously, he studied immune suppression in African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness).

Reed Tuckson receives Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award

Reed V. Tuckson, MD, FACP, received the 2025 Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award, which recognizes a leader's contributions to health education through program development, policy, advocacy or research. He is Managing Director of Tuckson Health Connections, LLC, an organization dedicated to promoting health and preventing disease through data analytics, care delivery, telehealth and biotech.

Global health experts rank among Time Magazine's 100 most influential

Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025 list includes several global health experts. Among those honored are Dr. Christian Happi, a Fogarty grantee who helped build the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) to educate future generations of African Scientists. His use of genomics technologies for early diagnosis and confirmation of Ebola virus disease helped contain the spread of disease during the Ebola epidemic of 2013-2016.

Wesley Sundquist, PhD, and Tomas Cihlar, PhD, a biochemist at University of Utah and a virologist at biopharmaceutical Gilead, respectively, also made Time's list. They transformed an antiviral treatment, lenacapavir, into a twice-a-year therapy to prevent HIV infection. Sundquist laid the groundwork by studying an HIV protein, the capsid, which creates a protective shell around the virus’ genome. After visiting his lab, Cihlar worked on these discoveries to extend the drug's effect over six months.

Another expert on Time’s list is Ismahane Elouafi, PhD, former chief scientist at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and now Executive Managing Director of CGIAR (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research), an agricultural research partnership. Her work in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia helps millions of farmers grow healthier crops and restore damaged soil in an effort to make the global food supply more reliable and protect natural resources, in turn improving human health.

Kate Maina-Vorley appointed CEO of Elrha

In May, Kate Maina-Vorley began her new role as Chief Executive Officer for Elrha, a U.K.-based funder of global health research. Previously she served as CARE’s regional director for East and Central Africa and held senior positions with Plan International, Education Development Trust, USAID, Project Concern International, UNICEF and Christoffel Blindenmission, all humanitarian organizations.

Jeffrey Taubenberger named Acting Director of NIAID

In April, Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger was named the Acting Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He oversees a $6.6 billion research budget to advance the understanding, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of infectious, immunologic and allergic diseases. He's known for sequencing, reconstructing, and characterizing the virus causing the 1918 influenza pandemic.