By John Greenburg

Among nations, the United States is the runaway leader in the money it spends on global health programs, and the looming question for advocates is what will happen under President Donald Trump and a Republican Congress. Nick Seymour, a Harvard junior volunteering at a health clinic in Mexico, argued for sustained spending.

Julie Overbaugh, PhD, Affiliate Professor in the UW Department of Global Health, scientist and member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Endowed Chair of Graduate Education, received the lifetime achievement Nature Award for Mentoring in Science and a $10,000 prize in December. Nature hosts these annual awards to champion the importance of mentoring and inspiring a generation of young scientists.

By Jessica Berman

A genetically engineered malaria vaccine has been shown to prevent the disease in mice, researchers say. The findings offer hope of halting the illness in humans, as well as stopping transmission of the mosquito-borne disease.

Researchers at the Center for Infectious Disease Research (CIDR) at the University of Washington, in conjunction with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, have developed a vaccine that uses the entire malaria-causing parasite — called P. falciparum — to stimulate a protective immune response.

By Johanna Eurich and Steve Heimel

The rate of suicide and homicide in the Kusilvak Census Area, located along the lower Yukon River in Alaska, more than doubled since 1980, a rate increase higher than anywhere else in the nation.