Oct 11, 2007
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has launched an Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases to extend and enhance ongoing research efforts to improve the lives of people around the world.
The institute, based in the School of Medicine, will build on the University’s current global health presence in about 50 countries.
Myron S. Cohen, M.D., associate vice chancellor for global health in the medical school, has been named institute director. Cohen, the J. Herbert Bate Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Public Health, is a leading expert on the spread and prevention of AIDS. A UNC faculty member for 27 years, he has served as director of the medical school’s Division of Infectious Diseases since 1989. Dr. Peggy Bentley, associate dean for global health in the School of Public Health, will be associate director of the institutes. A professor of nutrition, she joined the UNC faculty in 1998, is an expert on maternal and child health and nutrition and has worked in several countries around the world.