What does the global health community in Washington need in order to firmly stake our claim as a world leader in this endeavor? That question will be a central topic next week when nearly 250 leaders from the Seattle area gather at Suncadia Resort in Cle Elum for the Seattle Chamber’s annual Regional Leadership Conference (Oct. 22-24). The focus of this year’s conference is global health research, innovation, distribution, and philanthropy.
The goal of the conference is to provide our regional leaders – including Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, who will be attending along with Gov. Christine Gregoire and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels – with a clear understanding of the importance of the global health sector and the opportunities that it presents. And, we want to leave the conference with marching orders about what needs to be done to ensure our state as a center for excellence in global health.
The question of what the global health community needs has been considered for quite some time by me and my colleagues in the Washington Global Health Alliance. We have generated a framework with four major categories of what is required:
• Increasing marketing, outreach and recruitment activities
• Improving education, training and mentoring opportunities
• Enhancing infrastructure and incentives
• Creating public-private sector partnerships
Along with my colleagues Chris Elias of PATH, Judy Wasserheit of the University of Washington and Guy Palmer of Washington State University, I have been asked to address this issue head-on. The four of us will take part in a panel discussion to present our views and stir the creative juices of attendees with the intent of identifying the best ways to strengthen the global health enterprise in the state.
So what will I say? I will point out that Washington State global health community has made remarkable progress since the 1970s when I started Seattle Biomedical Research Institute. The well-developed health research community welcomed and embraced me, as well as my scientific goals, at a time when America was primarily focused on diseases that directly impacted this country. There was interest — but little research activity — in the global killers that were known at that time as “tropical diseases.”
That all changed with the multiple surges of emerging and re-emerging diseases, the HIV pandemic, the ability of many pathogens to resist common drugs, and economic globalization. As a consequence, awareness of the importance of what is now called “global health” has grown through the years. The fortunate presence of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has further enhanced that awareness. In addition, Washington State possesses superb intellectual capital, the best technologies, and organizations that are committed to this sector. So we are well-positioned to work on developing new solutions to be delivered to improve global health. This has already had significant economic impact in our state – creating new jobs to expand the research infrastructure.
A key factor in this success is the tradition of cooperation and collaboration among the global health organizations, an element that I experienced so keenly when SBRI started. From its inception, SBRI collaborated with University of Washington research faculty and that cooperation was expanded when SBRI first became formally affiliated with the UW in the early 1990s.
SBRI also recognized that the mission of PATH — to deliver appropriate health technologies globally — complemented our mission of scientific discovery. SBRI and PATH shared space years ago, which both of our organizations outgrew. Our vision that SBRI’s discoveries would one day be delivered by PATH is now becoming a reality through our partnership within PATH’s Malaria Vaccine Initiative. SBRI will now be home to one of only four centers in the world that will test malaria vaccine candidates in humans. This cooperative tradition helped each of organization move forward both individually and collectively. And, it is a key advantage in competing with other states and regions.
But, what needs to be done to ensure that Seattle and Washington State remains a, if not the, leading center for global health research?
