May 15 , 2006

Dear Colleagues:

The world faces no problems more critical than those posed by disease in developing nations.

To name but a few threats, billions of people in these nations face infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, the threat of influenza pandemics, and the emerging epidemics of disease caused by poverty and cultural and lifestyle change: high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

This week, Johns Hopkins is launching an important, exciting new initiative to meet these threats head-on: The Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health.

Our institutions already work around the world to discover and stop emerging diseases, to promote maternal and child health, and to prevent malnutrition and its insidious consequences. But we want to do more, we know how to do more and we must do more.

Our experts have concluded that the most effective strategy for strengthening our existing efforts is to find smart ways to combine and focus them, to create teams of physicians, nurses, basic scientists, epidemiologists, entomologists, engineers -- whoever is needed to attack a problem from all angles in a coordinated way. That's what the Center for Global Health will help us do.

The center, which will be under the direction of Dr. Thomas Quinn, will help bridge the international work of literally hundreds of faculty and researchers in the Bloomberg School of Public Health, School of Medicine and School of Nursing. It is, as far as we know, unique among global health initiatives in bringing together experts from top-flight schools in all three disciplines. It also will rely on valuable expertise from elsewhere at Johns Hopkins, both in East Baltimore and beyond.

We invite you to learn more about the center from a story in this week's Gazette, available online now at

http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2006/15may06/cgh.html

and at the center's Web site at

http://www.HopkinsGlobalHealth.org

Together with the establishment of the Institute for NanoBioTechnology (announced in last week's Gazette and celebrating its opening on Monday), the creation of the Center for Global Health is another marvelous reaffirmation of our commitment at Johns Hopkins to use knowledge to make the world a better place. We look forward to reporting to you in years ahead on our progress.

Sincerely,

William R. Brody
President

Martha N. Hill
Dean, School of Nursing

Michael J. Klag
Dean, Bloomberg School of Public Health

Edward D. Miller
Dean of the Medical Faculty
CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine