BU launches $10 mil. global health initiative

Boston University President Robert Brown announced Monday the launching of a new $10 million global health initiative that will forge a consortium across BU departments and with experts and specialists outside the university, supporting international research in an effort to study global health problems.

School of Public Health international health department chairman Jonathon Simon will head the initiative’s new Center for Global Health and Development. Simon said BU’s commitment is part of the university’s continued emphasis on globalization and awareness.

‘The opportunity to work on the challenges of health and development are sort of great challenges for a university to be involved in,’ Simon said. ‘These are the big issues of our time, and I think it’s part of our engagement of the world to work on these issues.’

SPH international health professor Rich Feeley agreed.

‘Health is becoming more international,’ he said. ‘It’s the appropriate role for the university to provide the evidence to science and knowledge to make global health care more effective.’

Simon said he thinks students are similarly committed to this global mindset.

‘There’s growing student interest in . . . global health and development,’ he said. ‘President Brown is quite receptive to that interest, and is trying to expand the amount of activities . . . of BU’s engagement in a globalizing world.’

BU plans to contribute $2 million to the initiative for each of the next five years. The money will come from both BU reserve funds and outside donors.

‘They are asking friends of the university through the global office,’ Simon said.

‘ Simon said the Center’s work includes connecting programs across campus to create innovative combinations of courses of study.

‘We are also involved in the new master’s program on global policy, which is collaboration between economics and international relations,’ Simon said. ‘One of the things that I hope to do is to bring some of the experiences of the center and research program into the development program.

‘ ‘So in a variety of ways, through a variety of different student committees, we are trying to contribute to the educational mission [at BU],’ Simon said.

Though BU’s Biosafety Level-4 laboratory has come under fire from Boston residents, Simon said he hopes it too will add to the research possibilities of the new center.

‘[It] depends on what happens and when it will open,’ he said. ‘What BU has that hardly any other universities have in this country is the ability to work on the most basic molecular level questions. Much of the work of the center is field trials.’

Feeley said he is looking forward to the research possibilities that will likely come with the center’s collaboration with the biolab.

‘[The biolab] is not supposed to be part of [the new center], in a sense that they have their own contract within the medical center,’ he said. ‘But the expectation is that there will be some lab research ultimately related to prevention or treatment of emerging diseases.’

Other professors said they are excited about the work that will be done with the center.

‘My specialty is access to medicine and that’s a huge debate on the global scale balance, the need of the medicine and getting medicine to people who really need them,’ SPH international health professor Kaplan Warren said. ‘This center really is an opportunity to make a difference.’

SPH international health professor Deborah Maine said she hopes the center will promote communication and sharing of knowledge between departments.

‘The exchange of information that is likely to come with the new center will benefit everybody that’s involved. It will create exciting opportunities for the students to be exposed to a wide variety of people in the university,’ Maine said. ‘And when you mix up various people from different disciplines and different schools, you get really great new ideas. I think it’s going to be a really exciting time.’

Staff reporter Yue Huang contributed reporting to this article.