Global health researchers at the University of Washington have received a $122 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to test the effectiveness of the candidate drug islatravir, a once-a-month oral pill to prevent HIV.

The five-year grant will support the implementation of a Phase 3, randomized trial of islatravir, among women, in seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Islatravir is a nucleoside reverse transcriptase translocation inhibitor in development by Merck for the treatment and prevention of HIV-1 infection.

When Ana Gervassi went into panic mode forty-five minutes before the General Examinations for her doctoral degree, there was only one thing she could think to do. She went to the office of her faculty mentor, Lee Ann Campbell, a professor of global health and the director of the Interdisciplinary Pathobiology Program at the University of Washington.

Online education manager Anya Nartker has been selected to receive the 2021 University of Washington Department of Global Health (DGH) Outstanding Staff Award. In further recognition of her instrumental contributions to the success of DGH during a year like no other, Anya also received the UW School of Public Health (SPH) Anderson-O’Connell Award for Outstanding Staff Service, presented at the virtual SPH Awards of Excellence ceremony on June 2, 2021. 

Dr. Jay Kravitz was passionate about pitching in. His understated but unrelenting commitment to caring for others fueled a prolific five-decade career in medicine and public health that led Dr. Kravitz around the world – to Ethiopia in famine, to the Thai-Cambodia border during the Khmer Rouge campaign, to Mexico City after an earthquake, and to Lesotho during the AIDS epidemic.