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Global Health Matters May/June 2025
Collaborating to find solutions for childhood obesity and related health issues
Our world is experiencing a crisis: Childhood obesity is increasing at alarming rates across the globe. This matters because children with obesity are more likely than their normal weight peers to develop type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression and other non-communicable diseases. Fogarty funds research projects in the U.S. and abroad that aim to produce evidence-based interventions and develop innovative strategies to stem this tide.
Smartphone-sized system uses CRISPR-based reagents to rapidly diagnose TB
Dr. Tony Hu and his team at Tulane University developed a new system with a CRISPR-based assay that quickly tests for active TB. The smartphone-sized, battery-powered device is also economical, costing less than $800, with each assay totaling less than $3. Most importantly, it delivers accurate TB diagnoses in under an hour.
Building health infrastructure to prevent childhood obesity and related diseases in Samoa
Dr. Courtney Choy studies chronic diseases including obesity, diabetes, cancer and hypertension in Samoa, a small Pacific Island nation with a rich culture and a high prevalence of these and other chronic diseases. She seeks to understand risk factors and protective factors to help prevent obesity and its related cardiometabolic conditions in children.
Telling Our Story
Several new Fogarty resources illustrate why global health research is a strategic investment in the health and well-being of the American public. These online materials offer updated evidence, data, and case studies that demonstrate how Fogarty’s work support U.S. health priorities.
Q&A with Josh Rosenthal, PhD: Fogarty Past & Present
Dr. Josh Rosenthal, a former senior scientist in Fogarty’s Division of Epidemiology and Population Studies, retired from Fogarty on March 31. After completing a PhD in Botany at the University of California, Berkeley, he conducted his post-doctoral research in Entomology and then joined Fogarty in 1994. His work at Fogarty, where he served as deputy director and interim director of the Division of International Training and Research, included creation of the Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases program and Household Air Pollution Intervention Network (HAPIN) Trial.
Our Voice helps citizen scientists address childhood health
Our Voice (Nuestra Voz) is an initiative that turns “everybody into citizen scientists who then collect meaningful health-related data for their own communities,” says Abby King, PhD, a professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford Medicine.
Sleep health study in Bangladesh provides a nuanced understanding of childhood obesity
Dr. Ayesha Sania, an assistant professor at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, is examining sleep health as it relates to cognitive development and obesity in Bangladeshi children for her Fogarty International Research Scientist Development Award (IRSDA) project.
Shattering consequences of tuberculous meningitis described in new study
Deadly when untreated, TB meningitis often causes death or disability even when treated. A Fogarty-funded study published in The Lancet Global Health provides first-ever estimates of TB meningitis incidence, morbidity, and mortality in children. Dr. Karen du Preez of South Africa’s Desmond Tutu Tuberculosis Centre, Stellenbosch University led this effort.
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Updated June 23, 2025
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