FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 11, 2007

GALVESTON, Texas - Dr. James LeDuc, a University of Texas Medical Branch professor and administrator, is among 24 of the nation's foremost global health experts recently tapped to help increase awareness about the critical need for greater U.S. public and private investment in research to improve global health.

He and others were named "global health ambassadors" by Research!America's Paul G. Rogers Society for Global Health Research. The 24 selected this year join 27 ambassadors designated last year.

Research!America (www.researchamerica.org) is the nation's largest not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance working to make research to improve health a higher national priority. Founded in 1989, it is supported by 500 member organizations that together represent more than 125 million Americans.

"Increased U.S. investment in global health research not only will help improve health conditions in poor countries," said LeDuc, "it also will help to staunch the spread of emerging and existing diseases that can endanger Americans here and abroad." He added: "Simply put, this is a matter of national security."

Recently emerging diseases such as SARS, West Nile virus and the drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis demonstrate that diseases cannot be contained within any country's borders, LeDuc observed.  

LeDuc directs the Program on Global Health within the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity at UTMB. He also serves as associate director for program development for the Galveston National Laboratory, a seven-story biocontainment facility now under construction on the UTMB campus and scheduled to begin operations in summer 2008. In addition, he is a professor of microbiology and immunology.

Employed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta before he joined UTMB last November, LeDuc spent his final year or so there coordinating the CDC's efforts to prepare for the possibility of pandemic influenza.

For the previous six years, LeDuc served as the director of CDC's Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, where he coordinated research activities, prevention initiatives and outbreak investigations for pathogens that cause viral hemorrhagic fevers, influenza and other respiratory infections, as well as childhood viral diseases and emerging diseases such as SARS.

LeDuc served from 1996 to 2000 as the associate director for global health in the Office of the Director, National Center for Infectious Diseases, and was a medical officer in charge of arboviruses and viral hemorrhagic fevers at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1992 to 1996.

He also held leadership positions during 23 years as a U.S. Army officer in the Medical Research and Materiel Command, with assignments in Brazil, Panama and various locations in the United States, including the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

In his "ambassador" incarnation, LeDuc will seek to raise the visibility of global health research through the news media and in meetings with policy makers, opinion leaders and the public. One of his central messages will be to stress the importance of effective collaboration among the nation's government, industry, academic, patient advocacy and philanthropic research sectors.

"Investing in global health research is the smart thing to do for America and the right thing to do for the world," said John Edward Porter, chair of the Society's Advisory Council and Research!America board chair. "In his long and distinguished career, Dr. LeDuc has personally shown the value of saving lives and protecting health around the world, and his wide experience and unique insights will help bring this important story to more Americans."

The Society, named for former Florida Congressman Paul G. Rogers, a renowned champion for research to improve health, was established in 2006 by Research!America with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In its first two years, the Society's Advisory Council-which includes three Nobel Laureates-selected 51 of the nation's leading scientist advocates to serve as Ambassadors.

Research!America is the nation's largest not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance working to make research to improve health a higher national priority. Founded in 1989, it is supported by 500 member organizations that together represent the voices of more than 125 million Americans. Visit www.researchamerica.org for more information.
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