GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 

Editor Merle D. Kellerhals Jr.

Managing Editor Cheryl Pellerin

Associate Editor Charlene Porter

Contributing Editors Jenifer Bochner

Kara Breissinger

 Eileen Kane

Cynthia LaCovey

 Rhobyn Costen-Sykes

Geri Williams 

Copy Editor Kathleen Hug

Reference Specialists Lynne Scheib

Joan R. Taylor

Photo Researcher Maggie Johnson Sliker 

Art Director Tim Brown 

Publisher Judith S. Siegel

Senior Editor George R. Clack

Executive Editor Richard W. Huckaby

Production Manager Christian Larson

Assistant Production Manager Chloe D. Ellis

Editorial Board Jeremy F. Curtin

Janet E. Garvey

Jeffrey E. Berkowitz

The Bureau of International Information Programs of 

the U.S. Department of State publishes five 

electronic journals under the eJournal USA 

logo—Economic Perspectives, Global Issues, Issues 

of Democracy, Foreign Policy Agenda, and Society 

& Values—that examine major issues facing the United 

States and the international community, and U.S. society, 

values, thought, and institutions.

One new journal is published monthly in English and is 

followed by versions in French, Portuguese, Russian, and 

Spanish. Selected editions also appear in Arabic, Chinese, 

and Persian. Each journal is catalogued by volume (the 

number of years in publication) and by number (the 

number of issues that appear during the year).

The opinions expressed in the journals do not necessarily 

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solely with the publishers of those sites. Journal articles, 

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must be sought from the copyright holders noted in the 

journal.

The Bureau of International Information Programs 

maintains current and back issues in several electronic 

formats, and a list of upcoming journals, at

http://usinfo.state.gov/pub/ejournalusa.html. Comments are 

welcome at your local U.S. Embassy or at the editorial 

offices:

Editor, eJournal USA: Global Issues

IIP/T/GIC

U.S. Department of State

301 4th Street, SW

Washington, DC 20547

United States of America

E-mail: ejglobal@state.gov

Cover photo: Crew members of space shuttle mission STS-71, Mir-18 and 

Mir-19 pose for an inflight photo in the Spacelab science module in June 

1995. Developed by the European Space Agency, Spacelab was mounted in 

the cargo bay of NASA’s space shuttle and carried to orbit, where scientists 

explored many fields of science. Courtesy of NASA.

eJOURNAL USA

Global Issues: Volume 11, Number 3
1 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

About This Issue

S

cience is the source of innovations that 

improve public health, lighten the burden of 

labor, improve energy efficiency, and expand 

human understanding of the cosmos and the living 

world.

Science is 

also an inherently 

international 

undertaking. 

Researchers share 

the results of their 

work with a scientific 

community that spans 

the planet through 

a growing array of 

collaborative efforts, 

technical journals, 

conferences, the 

Internet, and dedicated 

high-bandwidth data 

networks for research 

and education.

This increasingly 

global scientific 

enterprise straddles national boundaries to create 

a set of relationships in which traditions and 

cultures mix in cooperative ways, despite temporary 

setbacks arising from security concerns and 

economic competitiveness.

On the following pages, scientists, engineers, 

researchers, and educators who work with 

international colleagues at the leading edge of this 

global movement to share knowledge describe 

their work and preview the future of international 

collaboration.

Scott Horowitz of NASA describes how, at the 

dawn of a new space age, the world’s spacefaring 

nations are collaborating to enable achievements 

in space exploration that are beyond the financial 

and technical capability of any single country. 

Three researchers 

supported by the U.S. 

National Institutes 

of Health John E. 

Fogarty International 

Center for Advanced 

Study in the Health 

Sciences work with 

collaborators in 

Thailand, Central 

and Eastern Europe, 

and Peru to enhance 

global health. NASA 

astrophysicist Joseph 

Davila tells of a rare 

total solar eclipse 

and how it brought 

scientists from Libya, 

the United States, 

Switzerland, Italy, France, and Germany together 

for the first time in Libya’s ancient southern 

desert to study the sun’s corona and broadcast 

the event to the world. Norbert Holtkamp, who 

will lead the construction of the world’s largest 

fusion experiment, explains how the International 

Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor could 

become a clean energy source for a growing world 

demand.

These and other experts offer their thoughts on 

Sharing Science: Global Partnerships. 

Scientists at work on a device that is part of the Compact Muon Solenoid 

Collaboration at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

©CERN
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 2 eJOURNAL USA 

Science and Technology: A Bridge 

Between Cultures and Nations

GEORGE ATKINSON, PHD, SCIENCE AND

TECHNOLOGY ADVISER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE

Nations in Space

SCOTT HOROWITZ, PHD, ASSOCIATE

ADMINISTRATOR FOR THE EXPLORATION SYSTEMS

MISSION DIRECTORATE AT NASA HEADQUARTERS

IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Over the past 50 years, humans have made 

significant strides in space exploration and in 

fostering the worldwide cooperation that made it 

possible.

In Education City

CHARLES THORPE, PHD, DEAN OF CARNEGIE

MELLON UNIVERSITY IN DOHA, QATAR

The Carnegie Mellon-Qatar campus offers students 

in the Persian Gulf access to a highly regarded U.S. 

university at Education City, an effort to make Qatar 

a world-class center for education and research.

Curing Disparity

To eliminate health disparities worldwide, the 

U.S. National Institutes of Health John E. Fogarty 

International Center for Advanced Study in the 

Health Sciences fosters partnerships between U.S. 

scientists and foreign counterparts through grants, 

fellowships, exchange awards, and international 

agreements.

 Epidemiology in Silicon

DONALD BURKE, MD, DEAN AND JONAS SALK 

CHAIR OF GLOBAL HEALTH AT THE UNIVERSITY

OF PITTSBURGH GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC

HEALTH

 Environmental and Occupational Health for 

Developing Democracies

THOMAS COOK, PHD, PROFESSOR OF

OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

AT THE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL RURAL AND

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH IN THE COLLEGE OF

PUBLIC HEALTH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

 Global Health Peru

PATRICIA GARCIA, MD, MPH, PRINCIPAL

PROFESSOR IN THE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AT

THE UNIVERSIDAD PERUANA CAYETANO HEREDIA

IN PERU AND CHIEF OF THE PERUVIAN NATIONAL

INSTITUTE OF HEALTH

Total Eclipse Cooperation

JOSEPH DAVILA, PHD, ASTROPHYSICIST IN THE

HELIOPHYSICS DIVISION AT NASA’S GODDARD

SPACE FLIGHT CENTER IN MARYLAND

NASA and Libyan scientists conducted joint 

scientific activities for the first time as they observed 

and studied the March 29, 2006, total eclipse of the 

sun, which was most visible from the desert of Libya.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE / OCTOBER 2006 / VOLUME 11 / NUMBER 3

http://usinfo.state.gov/pub/ejournalusa.html

5

SHARING SCIENCE: GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS

9

18

12

4
3 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

Virtual Healing

GARY SELNOW, PHD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF

WIRED INTERNATIONAL AND A PROFESSOR WITH

THE MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN INSTITUTE AT SAN

FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY IN CALIFORNIA

Thousands of Iraqi doctors, nurses, and medical 

students are upgrading their healing skills and 

repairing a medical infrastructure neglected by 

former dictator Saddam Hussein, thanks to an 

innovative program linking them with hospitals and 

medical databases worldwide.

ITER: Fusion Energy Future

NORBERT HOLTKAMP, PHD, PRINCIPAL

DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL NOMINEE OF

THE ITER ORGANIZATION AND ITER PROJECT

CONSTRUCTION LEADER

The International Thermonuclear Experimental 

Reactor (ITER) is an experimental step into the 

energy future, offering participating nations and the 

world the potential of environmentally benign and 

theoretically inexhaustible electricity.

BOTUSA: A Partnership in Disease 

Research 

BOTUSA is an 11-year collaboration of the 

Botswana government and the U.S. Centers for 

Disease Control and Prevention to provide technical 

assistance and conduct research into the prevention, 

care, support, and surveillance of HIV/AIDS, 

tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted diseases.

GLORIAD: Cooperation in Research 

and Education

GREG COLE, PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR, THE GLOBAL

RING NETWORK FOR ADVANCED APPLICATIONS

(GLORIAD) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE

AND THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY OAK

RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY

GLORIAD gives scientists around the globe 

advanced networking tools that improve 

communications and data exchange, enabling 

active, daily collaboration worldwide on common 

issues in science.

Bibliography

Sources of information on significant readings in 

international science cooperation.

Internet Resources

Online sources of authoritative information from 

U.S. government and other organizations on science 

and technology topics.

24

26

31

33

37

39
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 4 eJOURNAL USA 

George Atkinson came to the U.S. Department of State in 

August 1981 as a Senior Fellow for Science, Technology, and 

Diplomacy, sponsored by the American Institute of Physics. 

In 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell named him 

to become the second Science and Technology Adviser to the 

Secretary of State. He remains a professor of chemistry and 

optical sciences at the University of Arizona (on leave).

S

cience and technology advances have immediate and 

enormous influence on global and national economies and 

international relations, and nations are 

largely shaped by their expertise in and access 

to science and technology. Those who create 

technology have a different set of options for 

the future than those who must purchase their 

technology. Scientific research increasingly defines 

material futures by identifying many potential 

technological opportunities and the challenges to 

social and governmental institutions in converting 

those opportunities into real-life advantages.

The scientific advances of our time are different 

than those of the 20th century because they have 

an immediate and often enormous influence on the 

global economy and therefore a direct influence on 

international relations. Many, if not most, nations 

have lifestyles, economies, and societal structures 

largely influenced by their expertise in science and 

technology and secondarily by their access to science and technology.

Many of the major science and technology advances of our 

time also offer remarkable new opportunities and challenges to our 

social institutions and ethical principles. In an increasingly global 

world, accurate scientific information 

must inform foreign policy and foreign 

policy must promote justified science 

goals. Since these opportunities have 

global impact, successful innovation will 

increasingly depend on global science 

and technology cooperation.

The international role of science and technology is 

continuously changing. Throughout most of the 19th century and at 

the outset of the 20th, Europe was the dominant power in scientific 

research and technology development. Beginning in the mid-20th 

century and at the outset of the 21st century, the United States has 

evolved into the dominant global power in scientific research and 

technology development.

History teaches us that leadership in science and technology 

is transitory. The fundamentally collaborative nature of science, 

coupled with the trend toward international partnerships, will 

ensure that science leadership is much more evenly 

distributed among nations in the future.

Why are science and technology so important 

in worldwide conversation today beyond their 

economic importance? Because they also involve 

cultural changes, and we as nations have not 

always paid enough attention to them. The 

fundamental concepts that most scientists and 

engineers extract from their education are the same 

that foster and sustain democratic societies—the 

meritocracy of ideas that transcend borders and 

cultures; transparency, in the form of publication 

of results; and the importance of public education, 

which begins any discussion concerning innovation.

Science-based decision making is the way 

of the future. We are likely to have few choices. 

We cannot legislate changes in the weather, in 

engineering principles, or in infectious diseases. So we must be able 

to assure ourselves and publicly reassure our constituents that we 

have started with information that is well justified, and be willing to 

share that information without regard to national borders.

The science and technology enterprise must come with the 

assurance of political and economic stability because innovation can 

operate only when long-term goals can be realized. If we remember 

that science is best done collaboratively, we will have a much better 

vision of how to improve it. In the global science and technology 

enterprise of the future, it will be best if we all succeed together. 

Science and Technology: A Bridge Between 

Cultures and Nations

George Atkinson, PhD, Science and Technology Adviser to the 

Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State

George Atkinson

 Courtesy of the State Department

An international aeronautics fair 

in Bremen, Germany. Successful 

innovation depends increasingly 

on global science and technology 

cooperation.

©AP/Images Joerg Sarbach
5 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

Space exploration began 

when people on Earth 

looked to the heavens 

and began documenting 

the motions of stars and 

planets. Today, 12 men 

have walked on the 

moon, and more than 80 

countries have worked 

together to send robotic 

spacecraft to nearly all 

planets of our solar system. At the dawn of a new space age, 

the world’s spacefarers are collaborating to enable achievements 

that are beyond the financial or technical capability of any one 

nation.

Scott Horowitz, PhD, is the associate administrator for 

the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (http://

exploration.nasa.gov) at NASA Headquarters in Washington, 

D.C. A retired U.S. Air Force colonel, Horowitz flew on four 

space shuttle missions and worked as NASA’s acting deputy 

associate administrator for safety and mission assurance.

Nations in Space

Scott Horowitz, PhD

 ©AP Images/NASA

International Space Station and space shuttle Discovery crew in the station’s Destiny laboratory. Led by the United States, the space station program draws on 

the scientific and technological resources of 16 nations—Brazil, Canada, 11 nations of the European Space Agency, Japan, Russia, and the United States. Courtesy of NASA

Scott Horowitz
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 6 eJOURNAL USA 

Over the past 50 years, humans have made 

significant strides in space exploration. 

What rises above the specific details of these 

accomplishments, however, is the worldwide effort and 

cooperation that made them possible. I believe that the 

growing spirit of collaboration, linked to the growing 

number of nations and organizations involved in space and 

the increasing scope of global space activity, will provide 

the framework required for even greater accomplishments.

The number of countries involved in space exploration 

has grown from a small, select group beginning in the 

1950s to more than 80 nations that today have organized 

efforts to use space exploration to benefit their societies. 

The future of space exploration will be grounded in such 

international involvement and, more importantly, in 

collaboration among nations to 

benefit people everywhere.

The history of space 

exploration is rich. In 1609, 

people began to explore the 

heavens visually thanks to 

improvements that Italian 

astronomer Galileo Galilei 

made to the telescope. Credited 

as the first to use the telescope 

for astronomical purposes, 

Galileo made it possible to 

observe mountains and craters 

on the moon’s surface.

In such beginnings, the 

dream of lunar and planetary 

exploration was born. Now, 

12 men have walked on the 

moon, and a wide range of 

unmanned missions to the 

moon and several planets have 

been completed. In just the past 

10 years, 150 planets have been 

discovered beyond our solar system. Closer to home, 

world citizens have reaped enormous benefits from space 

exploration through satellites that support communication, 

navigation, weather observation, and other remote-sensing 

disciplines. Space-related technologies and scientific 

knowledge have contributed to high-performance 

computing and robotics, scratch-resistant eyeglass lenses, 

breast cancer imaging, and much more.

For the near future, even more ambitious space 

exploration plans are in development. With completion 

of the New Horizons mission, the first spacecraft to visit 

the dwarf planet Pluto and its moon Charon in 2016-

2017, the world’s spacefaring nations will have sent robotic 

spacecraft to all the planets of our solar system. No later 

than 2020, we expect humans to once again walk on the 

moon. As the magnitude of space exploration increases, so 

does international, collaborative effort.

A good example of early space cooperation is the study 

of Halley’s comet during its approach to the sun in 1986. 

Five years earlier, in 1981, the space agencies of the Soviet 

Union, Japan, Europe, and the United States formed the 

Inter-Agency Consultative Group (IACG) to informally 

coordinate matters related to the space missions being 

planned to observe the comet. In 1986, five spacecraft 

from these nations rendezvoused with Halley’s comet. 

The vital information exchanged as a result of IACG 

collaboration was invaluable in studying the comet.

In human spaceflight, international collaboration has 

grown from the seeds of early programs such as Skylab, the 

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, and the Space Shuttle-Mir Joint 

Program, to the current International Space Station effort, 

one of the most incredible engineering accomplishments in 

history.

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, July 15-24, 1975, was 

the first international manned space flight. The mission 

Astronaut Donald Slayton, cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov, and astronaut Thomas Stafford (left to right) in the 

Soviet Soyuz Orbital Module during the joint U.S.-USSR Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in July 1975.

©AP Images
7 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

was designed to test rendezvous and docking systems 

compatibility for American and Soviet spacecraft and open 

the way for international space rescue and future joint 

manned flights.

The Space Shuttle-Mir Joint 

Program, February 1994 to June 

1998, went well beyond the scope 

of earlier collaborative programs, 

encompassing 11 space shuttle 

flights and seven U.S. astronaut 

residencies, called increments, 

on the Russian space station Mir. 

Space shuttles also conducted 

crew exchanges and delivered 

supplies and equipment. ShuttleMir showed that space exploration 

no longer had to be defined as a 

competition between nations and 

helped Americans and Russians 

develop the expertise to build and 

maintain the International Space 

Station.

The International Space Station 

is the largest international science 

collaboration in space today. The United States, Japan, 

Canada, Russia, and 11 countries represented by the 

European Space Agency have come together to build and 

inhabit the station. Through the science performed there, 

these nations seek to improve life on Earth and pave the 

way for future space exploration. 

The space station partnership 

has illustrated its strength and 

commitment with its perseverance 

through various strains, including 

aftershocks from the loss of the 

U.S. space shuttle Columbia in 

2003.

Such cooperative endeavors 

serve as inspiration for the future. 

When great nations seek great 

endeavors, they find more success 

with allies and partners. Space 

exploration is the great endeavor of 

our time.

As much as we can take pride 

in our past accomplishments, 

the dawn of a new space age lies 

ahead. In a relatively short amount 

of time, I believe the people of Earth will look through 

their telescopes at the moon to see evidence of human and 

robotic exploration activity benefiting people everywhere.

A television image of International Space Station crew members (front 

to back) astronaut Jeff Williams, European Space Agency astronaut 

Thomas Reiter, and cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov before a scheduled 

space walk on September 12, 2006. ©AP Images/NASA

©AP Images/NASA TV

The International Space Station against the blackness of space as the orbital outpost moves away from the 

space shuttle Discovery on August 6, 2005.
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 8 eJOURNAL USA 

They may see a surface research station, manned by 

an international crew that is working to obtain useful 

resources from the lunar regolith—a layer of loose rock 

resting on bedrock—as part of an effort to enable crews 

to live more independently of Earth. Antennas may be 

deployed on the far side of the moon that can be linked 

in phase to form the largest radio telescope ever built, free 

from the interference of radio noise from Earth. Other 

astronauts may be geological explorers, looking for clues to 

the origins of the Earth-moon system and life itself. While 

these activities are taking place, still others may be readying 

a 500-ton spaceship for humankind’s first voyage to Mars.

Already, many nations have initiated lunar exploration 

efforts. The 

European Space 

Agency’s Small 

Mission for 

Advanced Research 

in Technology 

orbited the moon 

in 2004. Over 

the next several 

years, other 

spacecraft will 

follow, including 

the Selenological 

and Engineering 

Explorer from 

Japan, Chandrayan

from India, Chang’e

from China, 

and the Lunar 

Reconnaissance 

Orbiter and its secondary payload, the Lunar Crater 

Observation and Sensing Satellite, from the United 

States. Each mission has some degree of international 

collaboration.

In 2006, the world’s spacefaring nations began 

discussing how they will work together to advance 

scientific, economic, and exploration progress on the 

moon. This effort begins now, with the planning and 

implementation of precursor robotic missions. These 

interactions are the seeds of future collaborative efforts.

NASA is compiling input from various communities, 

including international space agencies, to generate a 

global strategy of lunar exploration objectives. NASA 

presented this strategy at its Next Generation Exploration 

Conference, a gathering of emerging global space leaders, 

in August 2006.

As spacefaring nations come together to develop a 

vision of common and unique interests in the moon, 

we lay the groundwork for a momentous leap forward 

in space exploration. Some among us may see the moon 

as an end in itself, a unique location from which to 

investigate the processes that formed our solar system and 

a nearby location where self-sufficient human settlements 

may lay the groundwork for people to live and work 

on other worlds. Others may see the moon as a test site 

for technologies 

and operational 

techniques that 

will someday apply 

to the human 

exploration of 

Mars and other 

destinations. Still 

others may view 

the moon as an 

incredible resource 

that may help us 

solve energy and 

other problems 

here on Earth. 

Lunar exploration 

that is sustainable 

over the long term 

will require the 

efforts of all of us, 

with our many views of the role of the moon in human 

exploration and development.

When I was an astronaut, I experienced firsthand the 

benefits of international cooperation in space exploration. 

I believe in the great value of space exploration for people 

throughout the world. Although humankind’s first 

steps onto another world were taken by a dozen early 

explorers from America, it will take all of our nations, 

working together, to accomplish the great endeavor of 

space exploration that lies before us and to enable future 

generations of explorers to do the things we can only 

imagine today. 

An artist’s rendering from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency of a spacecraft flying above 

the surface of Mars.

©AP Images/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
9 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

In 2004, Carnegie Mellon University, a private research 

university based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, opened its first 

international branch campus 

(http://www.qatar.cmu.edu) in 

Doha, Qatar, offering students in 

the Persian Gulf undergraduate 

programs in computer science 

and business administration. 

At the invitation of the Qatar 

Foundation for Education, Science, 

and Community Development, 

Carnegie Mellon has joined 

several other U.S. universities in 

Education City, an effort to make Qatar a world-class center 

for education and research.

Charles E. Thorpe, PhD, is dean of Carnegie Mellon 

University-Qatar and a faculty member and former director 

of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh, where 

he led a research group that developed unmanned research 

vehicles. Thorpe, also a faculty member at Carnegie MellonQatar, teaches Introduction to Mobile Robotics.

In Education City Charles Thorpe, PhD

Courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar

Charles Thorpe

At the Doha, Qatar, campus of Pennsylvania’s Carnegie Mellon University, 50 students representing many nationalities are in the 2006 incoming class. Courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 10 eJOURNAL USA 

Carnegie Mellon University has international 

programs in Australia, the Republic of Korea, 

Japan, and Greece, and we do collaborative work 

all over the globe. At our Pittsburgh campus, a quarter 

of our undergraduate student body is international. 

But Carnegie Mellon-Qatar in Doha is our first full 

undergraduate program overseas. Qatar is ideal because it 

has the vision and resources to foster education at a high 

international standard. At Carnegie Mellon-Qatar, 40 

students just finished their sophomore year, 50 just finished 

their freshman year, and about 50 students are in the 2006 

incoming class. Eventually, we will admit up to 100 students 

per year when we have our own building in 2008.

The Qatar Foundation asked us to do everything in 

Doha that we do in Pittsburgh, which means we teach 

classes in English and they are fully coed (men and women 

attend the same classes). We teach a U.S. curriculum 

according to U.S. standards, and 73 percent of the new 

freshman class is female. We’re also there to do research 

and consulting and to engage society. Having friendly 

Americans in an unusual part of the world builds bridges 

in both directions. We learn how friendly our Qatari 

colleagues are, and they learn the kinds of expertise we 

can bring and that Americans 

have a wide range of political 

opinions. It turns out to be a 

very healthy exchange.

Being in Qatar benefits 

Carnegie Mellon in many 

ways. We’re learning about 

the students, the research 

opportunities, and how to 

work with people in the Gulf 

Region. We’re also making 

the Carnegie Mellon name 

visible in an important part 

of the world and broadening 

our student body base—the 

90 students we’ve had so far 

represent 18 nationalities.

Faculty and undergraduate 

students from Pittsburgh live, 

work, and learn in Doha, and five students from Doha 

lived and studied in Pittsburgh for the first half of the 

summer of 2006. That mixing of the Pittsburgh and Doha 

bases strengthens people on both sides.

One of the most interesting classes we ran in 2005 was 

called U.S.-Arab Encounters. Students in Pittsburgh and 

Doha would read about U.S.-Arab relations, then twice 

a week we would fire up the big-screen videoconference 

unit and the students would have discussions. It was 

fascinating to hear the preconceptions and misconceptions 

about what was happening on either side. There were some 

very vigorous exchanges of opinion, and the course got 

outstanding ratings from students, faculty, and visitors.

We have a rapidly growing science presence, but it 

began slowly. The first year, most of the Doha faculty had 

a teaching agenda, not a research agenda. As we grow, 

especially now that we’re getting into junior- and senior-level 

classes, I’m bringing over more research-oriented faculty.

An example of applied research that will have a shortterm impact in Qatar involves diabetes and health care. 

Qatar has the third-highest incidence of diabetes in the 

world, and the question is, why? Some of it has to do with 

small gene pools, some with diet and exercise habits in that 

Carnegie Mellon-Qatar experts helped local high school students who participated in the Second International 

Botball Robotics Challenge in Doha.

Courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar
11 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

part of the world. Before going to Doha, I was director of 

the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, 

and one of my PhD students from the institute is now 

in Qatar to investigate using intelligent computer-based 

methods to monitor diabetics and help them control their 

own medication, diet, and exercise regimes.

Another of my PhD students is in Qatar doing core 

robotics work with a mobile robot that builds highresolution maps of the city. Everything in Qatar is under 

construction all the time, so if you can run around and 

update maps rapidly, that is very useful.

We teach two robotics courses as part of the computer 

science curriculum, so all the computer science students 

and most of the business students take at least one of 

those courses. It’s fun because the students are learning 

robotics, but they’re also learning computer programming. 

We divide them into teams and they work together doing 

public presentations on the robots they’ve built, so they’re 

also learning presentation skills.

On the campus of Education City, the Qatar 

Foundation started putting together a “multiversity” rather 

than a university. Carnegie Mellon-Qatar is there to teach 

business and computer science. Georgetown University 

(Washington, D.C.) is there teaching foreign policy, 

Cornell University (Ithaca, New York) is establishing 

a pre-med program and a medical school, Texas A&M 

University (College Station, Texas) is teaching engineering, 

and Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, 

Virginia) is teaching design. We’re all in walking distance 

of each other, and we’ve started cross-registering courses. 

We also do joint programs with Qatar University, a few 

kilometers away. It’s a very interesting mix of courses that 

you can’t find in any single campus setting anywhere else in 

the world. 

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies 

of the U.S. government.
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 12 eJOURNAL USA 

T o eliminate health disparities worldwide, the U.S. National Institutes of Health 

John E. Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences 

fosters partnerships between U.S. scientists and foreign counterparts through grants, 

fellowships, exchange awards, and international agreements that support a range of activities. 

The stories that follow—about teaching epidemiologists in Thailand how to develop and 

run computer models of infectious diseases, helping developing democracies in Central and 

Eastern Europe build capacity in environmental and occupational health, and enhancing the 

contribution and participation of researchers in Peru to the global health agenda—are told by 

Fogarty-funded researchers who share their knowledge worldwide.

Curing Disparity

Courtesy of Thomas Cook, PhD

Trainees from eight countries in Central and Eastern Europe who are involved in a University of Iowa project funded by the Fogarty International Training 

and Research Program in Environmental and Occupational Health gather at a meeting in Slovakia.

Donald Burke, MD; Thomas Cook, PhD; Patricia Garcia, MD, MPH
13 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

Curing Disparity: Epidemiology in Silicon

DONALD BURKE, MD

Dean and Jonas Salk Chair of Global Health in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh 

For two years I have been principal investigator on a grant from the U.S. National 

Institutes of Health to develop computer models of infectious disease epidemics 

that may be important to national security. My group decided influenza was a top 

priority, so we did two types of influenza modeling. For one part of the modeling effort, we 

worked with collaborators in Thailand to develop simulations of a hypothetical epidemic in 

Southeast Asia. Then we used the model to determine if intervention strategies could stop 

an early-stage epidemic in its tracks—what we call “quenching” an epidemic—in Asia before 

it spread worldwide.

To do that, we created a simulated population for Southeast Asia, focusing on Thailand. 

Our simulation distributed 85 million individuals onto a map according to population 

densities. We put them in households, schools, and workplaces—basically creating an 

artificial society in the computer. We computationally released an influenza virus into the 

population and studied the transmission patterns that ensued. Then we evaluated what would happen if Thailand treated 

cases, treated families, closed the schools, or geographically restricted people’s movements. We are testing policies—plans, 

procedures, and actions designed to bring about a desired governmental goal, in this case epidemic control—in the 

simulation, and we call it “epidemiology in silicon.”

It isn’t possible to rigorously test policies before an epidemic explodes, but by doing it with a simulation that has 

some fidelity to natural patterns, you can ask if certain combinations of policies are likely to be more effective under 

certain circumstances. We published our findings in Nature magazine (September 

7, 2005). The main conclusion was that if you responded to a nascent epidemic 

at a reasonably early stage—fewer than 50 cases—and used an aggressive strategy 

of treating the cases and everyone in the geographic area with antiviral drugs, 

it would be possible to contain or quench the outbreak before it became an 

epidemic.

The second part of our modeling effort, published in Nature on July 26, 

2006, was to do the same thing for the United States—create a simulation 

of population density, movement patterns, households, workplaces, schools, 

distributed airline travel, and local travel. The difference in the United States is 

that we don’t expect to be able to completely stop an epidemic. At the height 

of a global pandemic, such a high percentage of potential travelers would be 

incubating or ill with influenza that stopping even 99 percent of air travel into 

the United States would still allow a large number of infected persons into the 

country by airplane.

These computer models are computationally intensive. We run the models 

thousands of times because every time we run them, just as chance influences 

reality, we get somewhat different results. To assess a policy, we have to run a 

simulation multiple times to see, on average, what effect an intervention-strategy 

policy option will have on the epidemic. Depending on the simulation, each run 

can take half an hour on a supercomputer.

In mid-2005, we were just finishing the Southeast Asia quenching modeling 

work when an opportunity came through the Fogarty International Center to 

Computer simulation of an outbreak of 

transmissible avian flu in Thailand. Red indicates 

new cases; green indicates areas where the 

epidemic has ended.

Courtesy of Donald Burke MD

Donald Burke

Courtesy of Donald Burke, MD
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 14 eJOURNAL USA 

increase Thai involvement. The Thais were very expert from the policy side, but they didn’t have modeling sophistication 

because most epidemiologists in Thailand don’t have a background in computational modeling and simulation. With 

Fogarty’s support, we worked with the Thai epidemiology training program through the Ministry of Health and provided 

training opportunities in modeling. The key collaborator there is Dr. Kumnuan Ungchusak, director of the Bureau of 

Epidemiology in the Department of Disease Control at the Ministry of Public Health.

Our group is working with the Thais on three levels. First, we worked directly with them as research colleagues to 

develop models. They were wonderfully helpful in this—we could not have completed our first modeling effort without 

our Thai colleagues. Second, we have worked on more classroom-oriented types of interactions, where larger groups learn 

the technology but are also exposed to computational approaches to modeling epidemiology. In June 2006, the Thai 

students completed a course for field epidemiologists. In addition to a regular epidemiology course, my junior colleague, 

Dr. Derek Cummings, gave a series of classes on modeling opportunities for 25 or 30 students in the class. Third, which 

isn’t yet accomplished because we’re still early in the program, we will identify degree candidates to work on projects that 

are in part related to modeling and simulation.

Curing Disparity: Environmental and Occupational 

Health for Developing Democracies

THOMAS COOK, PHD

Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at the Center for International Rural and Environmental Health in the 

College of Public Health at the University of Iowa

At the University of Iowa, we began working with health professionals from Central 

and Eastern Europe in 1996 to help these low- and middle-income countries 

build their capacity to improve occupational and environmental health. Today, 

professionals from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Romania work with us as part of the 

Fogarty International Training and Research Program in Environmental and Occupational 

Health, and program activities have included health professionals from as many as 13 

countries throughout the region.

Environmental health issues can include water quality and the health effects of poor 

water quality, air and industrial pollution, and soil pollution by fertilizers, pesticides, heavy 

metals, and other contaminants. Occupational health issues include injuries and trauma in 

the workplace, industrial and agricultural injuries, and work-related chemical exposures.

There’s a close link between occupational and environmental health issues, particularly 

in rural areas. Our focus at the University of Iowa is rural health. In the 1950s, we had one 

of the first centers for agricultural medicine in the United States, so we’re very interested in rural health issues and have a 

fair amount of experience and expertise in issues like pesticide poisonings and water contamination in rural areas.

Some people believe living in the countryside is healthy and wonderful, but the data worldwide tell you differently—

a large number of serious health issues are related to rural and remote populations. These include the lack of preventive 

health and emergency services for people who live long distances from medical facilities, and water contamination by 

pesticides and fertilizers. In several Central/Eastern European countries, as many as 80 percent of the rural villages have 

water supplies with chemical or biological contamination.

We help people in Central/Eastern Europe deal with environmental and occupational problems by training 

physicians and public health professionals in a wide range of specialties—people who know how to test well water, how 

to recognize health problems, and how to collect data so policies and regulations and laws can be changed. We’ve trained 

nurses, engineers, physicians, epidemiologists, and public health media specialists. Courtesy of Thomas Cook, PhD

 Thomas Cook
15 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

In each country, we identify at least one institution 

that is responsible for rural and environmental health 

and work with them to select and train the people they 

need. For example, the Nofer Institute for Occupational 

Medicine in Lodz, Poland, is that country’s leading 

occupational health institution. We will soon welcome the 

seventh health professional from that institution to our 

training program on the University of Iowa campus. The 

model we use is what Fogarty International Center calls 

intermediate-term training, meaning the students come 

to the University of Iowa for a 15-week semester. We and 

our collaborators jointly identify a student, who travels to 

the United States and takes graduate-level courses in the 

College of Public Health or a related college. The student is 

also matched with a faculty mentor who has expertise in the 

student’s field.

While they are at the University of Iowa, students formulate a small research project that will be funded and that 

they will work on when they return home. Within a year after they return home, their faculty mentor travels to the 

country and together they present a continuing education program for the student’s colleagues and other professionals 

from the region. It gives the trainees recognition as experts, and they are able to share what they have learned. We think 

it’s a great program.

It takes a few years for the training to pay off—to get a critical mass of experts in each country. In northwestern 

Romania, for example, the country’s third largest city, Cluj-Napoca (population 350,000), is in a very rural area. To date, 

we’ve had five trainees from Cluj, young, energetic physicians who are working hard to expand the scope and impact 

of public health in their country. We’ve found resources to fly experts there to conduct seminars and workshops, 

and we’ve significantly expanded our use of Internet-based education programs to help in capacity-building efforts 

throughout the region.

Curing Disparity: Global Health Peru

PATRICIA GARCIA, MD, MPH

Principal Professor in the School of Public Health at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru and Chief of the 

Peruvian National Institute of Health

At my university we are working to develop a global health framework and train 

a new generation of health scholars and investigators, doing so with the support 

of the Global Health Initiative of Fogarty International Center.

My colleagues—Dr. Eduardo Gotuzzo, Dr. Hector Garcia, and Dr. Bob 

Gillmann—and I at Cayetano Heredia are designing a multidisciplinary program 

related to global health and infectious diseases that includes people from the schools 

of medicine, public health, science (biology, chemistry, and mathematics), and mental 

health. We are also involving colleagues from other fields who have much to contribute 

to the study of the broad social and economic issues that relate to health. Specialists in 

social science, education, veterinary science, and dentistry are involved in our program, 

as are economists, sociologists, lawyers, and health communicators.

We aim to offer a master’s degree in global health for our undergraduate students, 

and we invite people from other countries to come and learn about public health issues 

in global health in the particular environment that surrounds our institution.

A Fogarty International Center/University of Iowa occupational health 

trainee conducts a survey related to well-water safety in Romania.

Courtesy of Thomas Cook, PhD

Patricia Garcia

Courtesy of Patricia Garcia, MD
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 16 eJOURNAL USA 

Our Global Health Demonstration Program here in Peru was the only program outside the United States that 

Fogarty fully funded for three years.

In training a new generation of health scholars at Cayetano Heredia University, we want to strengthen the translation 

of research into health policies and practices, and enhance the contribution and participation of developing-country 

researchers to the global health agenda. We basically propose to develop a multidisciplinary global health curriculum for 

undergraduate and graduate students and create a master’s degree in global health, initially with emphasis on infectious 

diseases but also on other areas we consider important, such as chronic diseases.

We also want to design and implement distance-learning programs, expand international faculty exchanges, and 

develop global health expertise at our university that is not currently available in Peru.

We have almost finished the first year of the program. The idea was to develop an administrative system that would 

allow different schools within our university to work together—which is usually very complicated in one institution—

and have curricula that allow students from different schools to take courses together to promote multidisciplinary 

approaches.

This year we also launched our Web page (http://www.globalhealthperu.org) and two pilot courses—Foundations 

in Global Health and Basic Concepts in Global Health. In July 2006, we finished Basic Concepts in Global Health, 

a weeklong course for undergraduate students that includes the participation of different professionals. It’s a broad 

approach to global health that covers economic aspects, social aspects, different diseases of global importance, and 

Courtesy of Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia

Students participate in fieldwork for a Basic Concepts in Global Health course at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru.
17 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

fieldwork. We go up to the Andes Mountains for a day so students can put together issues of health and the environment. 

Next year we plan to extend the course to two weeks and open it to international students.

Another project completed in our first year was an international conference, the First International Conference on 

Health Problems With Global Impact and Relevance, held in August 2006 in Lima, Peru, for health sciences students 

and professionals.

For our second year, which started in September 2006, our goal is to organize our master’s degree in global health 

and promote research in global health as part of the program. That will also be part of the third year. Both years will have 

international students—the interaction between international students and national students is key for the issue of global 

health.

The Taiwan government provided funding to launch the Peruvian health portal (http://portal.globalhealthperu.org). 

It is for people who are interested in coming to Peru or learning about diseases located geographically in Peru. Right 

now we describe only infectious diseases, but our idea is to eventually include mental disorders and other issues. We 

have health recommendations for travelers and are creating a database of studies of different diseases in Peru by Peruvian 

researchers.

The course on Foundations in Global Health is an open course for graduate students and has about 80 students. The 

idea of this course is to evaluate interest in these topics and create a forum for discussion of global health issues. At the 

end of the course, the students will present monographs on global health issues, and we will publish the best papers in a 

book that will be out in January 2007.

It’s a great opportunity that we are able to promote the development of global health, interaction between researchers 

from other nations and Peruvian researchers, and the interests of undergraduate and graduate students in global health.

I would like to invite students from other countries who are interested in the program to visit our Web site and learn 

about how to participate in these courses and, eventually, in the research that will be done through this program. 

The opinions expressed in the preceding articles do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 18 eJOURNAL USA 

Joseph Davila, PhD, is an astrophysicist 

in the Heliophysics Division at NASA’s 

Goddard Space Flight Center in 

Maryland. His research interests include 

wave/particle interactions on the sun, the 

three-dimensional structure of the sun’s 

corona, and the sun’s magnetic field.

I

n March 2006, during a rare four-minute total solar 

eclipse, astrophysicists from NASA and scientists from 

research institutions in Libya collaborated for the 

first time in this North African country on joint scientific 

activities. Traveling to Libya’s ancient southern desert in 

search of the best eclipse visibility, the scientists studied 

the sun’s corona and helped broadcast the event to people 

around the world.

Total Eclipse Cooperation

Joseph Davila, PhD

Near the beginning and end of a total 

solar eclipse, the sun’s edge seems broken 

into beads of light, called Baily’s beads 

after British astronomer Francis Baily’s 

1836 discovery. The beads occur because 

the moon’s edge is jagged with mountain 

peaks. When one bead is visible, the effect 

resembles a diamond ring. This effect was 

captured after totality, from Anatolia in 

southern Turkey.

NASA distributed 5,000 pairs of special glasses throughout Libya to allow people to 

safely view the spectacular March 29, 2006, sun-moon event. Courtesy of Nat Gopalswamy, PhD Courtesy of Joseph Davila, PhD

Courtesy of NASA 

Joseph Davila
19 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

Total solar eclipses happen about once a year, on 

average, somewhere on Earth. On March 29, the fourminute, six-second total solar eclipse occurred when, from 

Earth’s perspective, the moon passed in front of the sun 

and seemed to be about the same size as the sun. Over the 

past 50 years, scientists have learned a lot about the sun’s 

corona—where its energy comes from and how it attaches 

to the rest of the interplanetary medium—but many 

details are still mysterious.

What many people don’t realize is that the sun 

doesn’t end at the yellow ball. The atmosphere of the sun 

extends all the way through the solar system. Earth travels 

through the sun’s atmosphere, which ends at a region 

called the heliopause boundary—the outer limits of the 

sun’s magnetic field and outward flow of the solar wind 

—between 18 billion and 22 billion kilometers from the 

sun.

The next total eclipse, on August 1, 2008, will be seen 

in northern Canada, Greenland, Siberia, Mongolia, and 

northern China. It will last about two minutes. One of the 

longest eclipses on record will take place July 22, 2009, 

when totality will last for more than six minutes as seen 

from a spot in the Pacific Ocean.

Predicting eclipses is easier than predicting space 

weather, which is similar to Earth weather but originates 

on the sun. Activity on the sun’s surface, like solar flares, 

can cause high levels of radiation in space that can appear 

as plasma (particles) or electromagnetic radiation (light). 

On Earth, space weather can interfere with shortwave 

radio transmission and electric power grids. In space, space 

weather can cause satellite orbits to decay and can be a 

radiation hazard for satellites and astronauts during some 

phases of space missions.

In studying the sun and the corona, we’d like to 

develop our science to be comparable with today’s weather 

observations and forecasts, so when people or robots go 

into space, we can predict what the weather will be. To do 

that takes a lot more information than we currently have. 

Right now, we have broad sketches of how things work, so 

it’s not mysterious from that point of view. But in terms of 

making actual predictions about what’s going to happen in 

space tomorrow, we’re not very good at that yet.

The eclipse is special for us because it gives us a 

chance on Earth to test instruments in conditions that 

are similar to space. It’s much cheaper for us to go to an 

eclipse observation site and test these instruments than it is 

to build a spacecraft and test them in space. You’re talking 

about hundreds of millions of dollars in space and tens of 

thousands of dollars for one of these trips. Neither one is 

cheap, but this is much cheaper than going to space with a 

brand new instrument.

After Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan first 

sailed around the world, the world got smaller and people 

suddenly needed a science of oceans, ocean currents, 

jet streams, large-scale winds, and trade winds. People 

needed to know about the large-scale features in Earth’s 

atmosphere because they were traveling through that 

atmosphere. It’s similar in space. We’ve just kind of stuck 

our toe into space, but maybe in the next 50 to 100 years, 

people will be traveling in space, so we’re going to need to 

know more about the space environment.

To demonstrate new techniques for observing the sun’s 

atmosphere and prototype instruments for future space 

missions, we and our Libyan collaborators performed two 

experiments during the eclipse.

In one experiment, we set up a small telescope with 

a camera that uses filters to capture light from the sun’s 

corona and separate it into different colors of the spectrum. 

Another experiment—called MACS, for multi-aperture 

coronal spectrometer—uses a spectrograph to separate the 

light into individual colors. The filter approach is simpler 

to implement, but the spectrograph is more accurate. We 

will compare the two techniques when the data gathering 

is complete. Much analysis is needed before results can be 

released to the scientific community, but the results so far 

are very promising.

By doing these experiments, we’re able to measure 

properties of the electrons that are scattering the light—the 

density, the temperature, and the flow speed of electrons 

In Libya’s Al-Fateh University, where 7,000 students study nearly every 

engineering and science discipline, NASA’s Joseph Davila (left) presents 

Dr. Hadi A.A. Omar, dean of the faculty of science, with a book about the 

history of NASA spaceflight for the university library.

Courtesy of NASA 
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 20 eJOURNAL USA 

in the corona. That’s information we need to improve 

computer models of the solar system.

The day after the eclipse, I traveled to Sebha 

University, 800 kilometers south of Tripoli, to discuss 

scientific participation in programs related to the 

International Heliophysical Year 2007, an international 

program to unite the world’s science community from 

all 191 United Nations member states for scientific 

collaboration to study the Earth, sun, and solar system as 

one system.

Throughout the Libyan trip, the people’s response 

to us was overall very positive. Young people were very 

interested in talking to us and were very friendly. Some 

of the older people were more wary, but everyone knew 

NASA and everyone wanted something with the NASA 

logo on it. We gave away all of our pens, buttons, and 

NASA stickers.

The photos below and on the following pages show 

various aspects of our visit to Libya. 

After giving a presentation on space weather, NASA solar science, and the 

sun’s influence on Earth’s environment, the NASA team lunches with Al-Fateh 

University faculty, university officials, and visitors. Afterward, NASA and faculty 

scientists discussed potential areas of scientific cooperation.

Courtesy of NASA 

Courtesy of NASA 

The NASA-Libyan science team arrived by helicopter at Eclipse City, at 

Waw an Namus near the southwest city of Awbari in Libya’s southern 

desert, three days before the eclipse.
21 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

Eclipse City, two years in planning and construction, was a 

temporary base camp and headquarters provided by the Libyan 

government. More than 150 scientists and support personnel lived 

on site. The main tents, dining tents, a community area, and sleeping 

accommodations are on the right. Tents for soldiers from the Libyan 

Army, who maintained a security perimeter around the camp, are 

on the left.

 Hundreds of kilometers into the Sahara Desert, scientists 

from universities and research organizations in the United 

States, Libya, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Germany 

participated in the International Symposium on Solar 

Physics and Solar Eclipses. The International Heliophysical 

Year, the Libyan government, and the Institute of 

Astronomy of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 

Zurich sponsored the conference.

The temporary tent city had showers, toilets, refrigerated food storage, a gift shop, 

kitchen and dining tents, and satellite communications. Housing consisted of finely 

crafted straw huts with carpeting and thick foam mattresses.

Courtesy of NASA 

Courtesy of NASA 

Courtesy of NASA 
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 22 eJOURNAL USA 

Orville Chris St. Cyr (left), an astrophysicist in the 

NASA Solar Physics Branch at Goddard Space Flight 

Center, and Nelson Reginald, assistant research 

professor of physics in the Institute for Astrophysical 

and Computational Sciences at Catholic University 

of America in Washington, D.C., set up one of two 

experiments to demonstrate new techniques for 

observing the sun’s atmosphere.

Joseph Davila: “The Libyan government provided 

telephone service and wireless Internet access, 

and a communications tent housed equipment 

that linked us to the rest of the world by satellite. 

A separate link from Libya Television allowed 

images from the eclipse site to be transmitted 

to NASA in the United States and around the 

world. Libya Television broadcast news from the 

encampment to the Libyan population.”

Courtesy of NASA 

Courtesy of NASA 
23 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

The U.S. Department of State Office of Science and Technology Cooperation, NASA, and the government of Libya worked in concert 

to make possible the historic solar eclipse expedition. 

 Courtesy of Olivier Garde, Grenoble, France 

Totality.

Courtesy of NASA
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 24 eJOURNAL USA 

A San Francisco organization is helping Iraqi doctors recover 

from 20 years of isolation and censorship under Saddam 

Hussein, using computer 

technology and the Internet 

to give Iraq’s medical schools 

quick access to current technical 

knowledge, electronic research 

libraries, and video connections 

with U.S. medical educators.

Gary Selnow, PhD, is executive 

director of WiRED International 

(http://www.wiredinternational.org) and a professor with 

the Marian Wright Edelman Institute at San Francisco State 

University in California.

Twenty years of censorship in Iraq effectively 

isolated Iraqi doctors from advances in medicine. 

Saddam Hussein blocked e-mail and Internet 

communication, banned travel to professional conferences, 

and cut off access to medical journals and textbooks. The 

result is that Iraqi medicine, once among the best in the 

world, has become among the least informed anywhere.

Virtual Healing

Gary Selnow, PhD

Courtesy of WiRED 

Gary Selnow

Doctors and medical students in Baghdad access electronic libraries at WiRED International’s Medical Information Center at Medical City Center, the largest 

medical school and teaching hospital in Iraq. Courtesy of Gary Selnow, PhD
25 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

This became evident soon after our small group from 

WiRED International, a nongovernmental organization 

that pioneered computer-based medical information 

programs after the Balkan Wars in 1997, entered Iraq on 

the heels of the coalition forces in 2003. Sponsored by 

the U.S. State Department, we looked at how we might 

use information technology to help Iraqi medical schools 

obtain quick access to current technical information. An 

American technician and I joined with Iraqi doctors and 

technicians to install electronic libraries in Baghdad-area 

teaching hospitals. In a single day, we converted empty 

rooms into research libraries called Medical Information 

Centers (MIC).

An MIC is a collection of interconnected computers 

that draws technical material from two sources. Where 

satellite connections are available, MICs provide access to 

the Internet’s rich online resources at the world’s leading 

medical schools and research institutes, the World Health 

Organization, and U.S. government health agencies. 

These are valuable databases for any user, but in places 

where medical journals are few and far between, and 

where textbooks are older than some medical students, the 

Internet is a brimming source of technical knowledge.

Where the Internet is not available, or unaffordable, 

WiRED stocks electronic libraries with as many publicaccess journals, texts, and research papers as we can load 

onto a computer hard drive. Each MIC is then outfitted 

with this stand-alone library that can be 

used without an Internet connection.

WiRED installed the first four MICs 

in Baghdad in June 2003, and by June 

2006 we had set up 39 of these centers at 

hospitals across Iraq.

We recently augmented the MICs 

with videoconferencing equipment at 

medical schools in Baghdad, Basrah, Erbil, 

and Mosul. These systems provide direct, 

high-speed audiovisual communications 

between Iraqi and American physicians for 

lectures, seminars, and patient assessments. 

WiRED’s consortium partners at Children’s 

National Medical Center in Washington, 

D.C., the University of California-San Francisco Medical 

School, and San Francisco State University College of 

Nursing provide most of the medical content. This is the 

only program in Iraq providing Iraqi medical educators 

with direct links to the outside medical community. These 

electronic telemedicine bridges, along with the MICs, 

give Iraqi doctors a chance to break the isolation they’ve 

suffered for so many years.

Understanding the potential outcomes of this program 

is why WiRED treasures words like these from Dr. Kahalid 

N. Mayah of the Basrah Teaching Hospital: “WiRED may 

be the best thing done for Iraq. Many nonprofits came 

to Iraq, some stayed, some went, but your effort to make 

Iraqi doctors enter to the world of scientific research and 

information systems was the best thing done.”

All of us at WiRED are volunteers. We hope that our 

work in Iraq, as in all the countries we serve, demonstrates 

the abiding goodwill of the American people. WiRED 

seeks to unite medical communities around the world 

through improved communication. We believe that a 

universal quest for good health can become the tie that 

joins us together. 

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies 

of the U.S. government.

A satellite links doctors at San Francisco State University in California and the Medical 

Information Center in Baghdad.

Courtesy of WiRED International
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 26 eJOURNAL USA 

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor 

(ITER, http://www.iter.org) is a joint international research 

and development project among seven parties worldwide to 

demonstrate the scientific and technical feasibility of using the 

power of fusion—which arises from 

combining the nuclei, or centers, of two 

atoms—as an energy source for growing 

world demand. ITER will be built in 

Cadarache, France, for operation in or 

near 2016.

Norbert Holtkamp, PhD, is ITER’s 

principal deputy director-general 

nominee and project construction 

leader. He was born in Germany and has held positions at 

the Deutsches Elektronen Synchroton in Hamburg, Germany, 

and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. 

Beginning in 2001, he coordinated and led the design and 

construction of the accelerator of the Spallation Neutron 

Source (SNS) at the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge 

National Laboratory. Completed in May 2006, the SNS is 

a $1.4-billion accelerator-based source of subatomic particles 

called neutrons that will provide the world’s most intense 

pulsed-neutron beams for scientific research and industrial 

development.

ITER: Fusion Energy Future

An interview with Norbert Holtkamp, PhD, the scientist who, with ITER Director-General Kaname Ikeda, 

will lead the construction of the world’s largest fusion reactor.

Ministers from the European Union (EU), the People’s Republic of China, the United States, and the Russian Federation sign the International Thermonuclear 

Experimental Reactor agreement at the EU Commission Headquarters in Brussels in May 2006.

©AP Images/Thierry Charlier

Courtesy of ITER

Norbert Holtkamp
27 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

I

n a world where energy needs are rapidly growing 

beyond the available supply capacity, scientists from 

around the world are working to harness the power of 

the sun and stars and use this resource to meet the planet’s 

rising demands. The European Union, the Republic of 

Korea, India, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States 

are forming the ITER Organization to develop this means 

of energy generation. In this interview, Dr. Norbert 

Holtkamp, ITER deputy director-general nominee and 

the scientist who will lead the construction of the world’s 

largest fusion reactor, discusses ITER and the progress of 

fusion research. Dr. Holtkamp spoke with Global Issues

science writer Cheryl Pellerin.

Question: What is the ITER project?

Holtkamp: ITER is an abbreviation for International 

Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, and it also has a 

Latin meaning—iter means “the way” in Latin. ITER is 

the intent to build the largest fusion reactor experiment 

in the world. A much smaller version of it exists now. JET 

—the Joint European Torus—the largest nuclear fusion 

experimental reactor device yet built, began operating in 

1983 near Culham, England. ITER is the next step toward 

constructing fusion power reactors to generate electricity.

Q. What are fi ssion and fusion?

Fusion, Briefl y: This article discusses the workings of atoms—the tiny particles that make up all matter. Atoms 

contain three main “subatomic” particles—protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons are heavier 

than electrons and exist in the atom’s center, called a nucleus. Lightweight electrons exist in a cloud that surrounds 

the nucleus. Each atom’s weight equals its protons plus its neutrons. Hydrogen is the lightest element, with one 

proton and no neutrons. Its atomic weight is 1. Iron is an example of a heavy element, with 26 protons and 30 

neutrons; its atomic weight is 56. Fusion in atoms lighter than those of iron produces energy, and fusion in heavier 

elements requires energy. The number of protons for a given element never changes, but the number of neutrons 

can change. Atoms of elements that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons are called 

isotopes. Hydrogen has three isotopes—protium (one proton, no neutrons), deuterium (one proton, one neutron), 

and tritium (one proton, two neutrons). At ITER, fusion will be the combination of two of these light atoms, 

deuterium and tritium, to form a more stable heavy atom, helium, and a neutron, both of which carry kinetic 

energy. Fusing them will release excess energy.

Neutron

Deuterium

Helium

Energy

Tritium

Image Courtesy of ITER
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 28 eJOURNAL USA 

Holtkamp: Fission is getting energy from breaking up 

heavy atomic nuclei. Fission is a process that is controlled 

in a nuclear reactor and uncontrolled in a nuclear bomb. 

Fusion is fusing two light nuclei together. In the case of 

ITER, two hydrogen nuclei are basically melded together. 

When that happens, energy is freed up and comes out.

Q. Why is fusion better for this project than fission?

Holtkamp: Lots of nuclear fission reactors are operational 

and used to make energy right now, so fission has the 

advantage that it works today. Fusion is not something 

that works yet, it’s a research project. Both—fission and 

fusion—are nuclear processes, but they are fundamentally 

different. The advantage of fusion is that one waste 

product from the reaction, helium, is not radioactive, and 

the other, a neutron, is used to make the hydrogen isotope 

tritium from lithium-bearing materials surrounding the 

plasma [ionized gas]. In a fission reactor, when you break 

up these nuclei, the two pieces that are left over are both 

radioactive. In a fusion process, that’s not true—the 

chamber that surrounds the nuclei becomes mildly 

radioactive, but the by-products are not.

The big thing with fusion is that the deuterium and 

lithium, which is used to make tritium, used in the fusion 

process are available in vast amounts—they are abundant 

in the earth and in the sea. That’s not true for fission 

reactors, where you have to use uranium, which is in 

limited supply, or something like it to operate them. But 

it’s not fair to sell fusion as a better process yet because 

fusion devices built right now are research experiments, 

not reactors—scientists are trying to find out how to use 

fusion to create energy. If ITER is successful, it will be the 

first fusion reactor device that will create significantly more 

energy than it uses. That’s a major step.

Q. Where did the idea for ITER come from?

Holtkamp: It came from international cooperation in 

fusion research and was proposed by Soviet President 

Mikhail Gorbachev in a meeting with French President 

François Mitterrand and subsequently U.S. President 

Ronald Reagan at the Geneva Summit in 1985. The three 

presidents got together and decided to do something 

about energy resources and see what other energy sources 

science could make available once we run out of coal and 

oil. Fusion was always a very international research topic, 

and at these summits, energy, of course, is a big discussion 

point. It drives every economy, every state. It wasn’t a 

scientific discussion, but they came together and said this 

was something we should be doing. We should be putting 

the world’s brain power together, and do it together, and 

share the results of the research.

Q. What are ITER’s scientific and technical objectives, and 

what will it demonstrate?

Holtkamp: ITER will be the first fusion reactor to create 

more energy than it uses. Scientists measure this in terms 

of a simple factor—they call it Q. If ITER meets all the 

scientific objectives, it will create 10 times more energy 

than it is supplied with. The latest device, JET in England, 

is a smaller prototype that in the final scientific stage 

reached a Q of nearly 1, which means that it generated as 

much energy as was put into it. ITER will be the way to 

go beyond this—a demonstration of creating energy in the 

fusion process—to a Q of 10. The idea is to put in about 

50 megawatts and produce 500 megawatts. So part of the 

scientific goal of ITER is to first make sure that this Q of 

10 can be achieved.

Another piece of the scientific goal is that ITER 

will have a very extended burn—an extended pulse of 

up to one hour. ITER is a research experiment reactor 

and cannot create energy all the time. When ITER starts 

operating, it will be on for up to one hour, then you have 

to turn it off. The importance of this is that, so far, typical 

devices we build can only have burn times of several 

seconds or tenths of seconds—that’s the maximum. JET 

U.S. President Ronald Reagan (left) and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev 

during their November 1985 meeting at the Geneva Summit in Switzerland 

where they and French President François Mitterrand first agreed to work 

together to find new energy resources.

©AP Images/U.S. White House
29 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

achieved its Q of 1 with a burn of about two seconds in a 

pulse length of 20 seconds. But several seconds is not really 

constant. Like starting a car—cranking the motor up and 

then turning it off is not really operating a car. When you 

drive your car for half an hour, it’s constantly operating 

and demonstrates that you can actually drive.

So what ITER will provide technically and 

scientifi cally is a Q of 10 and an extended burn.

Q. What is the schedule for the ITER project?

Holtkamp: That will depend on how quickly we can 

put the team together 

in Cadarache, and how 

successful the different 

parties will be in 

constructing the 

components they 

have to deliver. That 

goes along with funding 

the project adequately 

on a yearly basis, so 

the funding needs to 

be agreed upon. The 

general intent is that in 

2016 ITER will begin 

operation. I cannot 

promise you that this 

is realistic because 

the detailed planning 

process during the 

next year will have 

to confi rm that. 

Therefore, I’m not 

quite willing to commit 

to 2016 yet. When 

complete, ITER will run for 

25 or 30 years.

Q. Could you describe the 

phases of ITER?

Holtkamp: Phase 1 is Before Construction. Offi cially, 

ITER doesn’t exist yet as an organization because the 

seven parties have not signed and ratifi ed the documents. 

That’s supposed to happen by the end of the year. The 

parties have agreed upon what ITER as an international 

organization is going to look like. This is a real success 

story. It took four years or so to fi nalize the negotiations 

on how this is supposed to be done and that ITER will be 

built in France. At the same time, if you look at what the 

parties have said, the entire agreement document is less 

than an inch thick. It’s impressive that seven parties can 

agree on founding a new international laboratory with less 

than an inch of paper.

We’re launching the Construction Phase right now—

constructing the device, building the buildings and pieces 

of the tokamak [a doughnut-shaped (toroidal) chamber 

used in fusion research in which a plasma is heated and 

confi ned by magnetic fi elds. The term tokamak is from the 

Russian words for 

“toroidal chamber in 

magnetic coils”], and 

then putting the tokamak 

together and getting 

it up and running.

The Operation 

Phase is the following 

25 or 30 years, when 

all the experiments will 

be done. Because it’s an 

experimental device, 

ITER will not achieve its 

performance the day after 

it’s built. People have to 

learn how to operate it, 

where the tricks are, 

where the problems are, 

and they will have to 

push to achieve the 

ultimate scientifi c 

goals and maybe even 

go beyond.

Then the 

Decommissioning 

Phase starts; part of 

the construction and 

operation phases is to plan 

for decommissioning. I 

mentioned earlier that 

the fusion by-products are not very radioactive, but the 

chamber—the place where this process happens—is 

very radioactive. That needs to be decommissioned and 

disposed of in an environmentally compatible way, like 

any other radioactive piece of hardware. That’s part of the 

decommissioning phase, which will last about fi ve years.

An artist’s cutaway image of the ITER fusion device. The device is based on 

the tokamak concept, in which a hot gas is confi ned in a torus, or donutshaped vessel, using a magnetic fi eld. The gas is heated to more than 100 

million degrees Celsius and will produce 500 megawatts of fusion power. 

A person at the bottom of the image gives an idea of the device’s size.

.

: That will depend on how quickly we can 

in Cadarache, and how 

successful the different 

goes along with funding 

general intent is that in 

quite willing to commit 

confined by magnetic fields. The term tokamak is from the 

Russian words for 

“toroidal chamber in 

magnetic coils”], and 

then putting the tokamak 

Phase is the following 

25 or 30 years, when 

all the experiments will 

be done. Because it’s an 

experimental device, 

ITER will not achieve its 

performance the day after 

it’s built. People have to 

learn how to operate it, 

where the tricks are, 

where the problems are, 

go beyond.

Then the 

Courtesy of ITER 
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 30 eJOURNAL USA 

Q. Why is international scientific cooperation critical to 

ITER?

Holtkamp: Energy is a problem for everybody in the 

world. If you look at the seven parties—the European 

Union, the Republic of Korea, India, China, Japan, Russia, 

and the United States—and count the people who live 

in these countries, they account for more than half of 

the world’s population. The interest part is clear and can 

easily be explained. The scientific cooperation is just as 

clear in my view. There is expertise all around the world in 

fusion devices, and a complicated device of that magnitude 

absolutely needs the smartest people we can find to be 

successful. Plus, there’s a big benefit in international 

cooperation because people of different cultures bring 

different ideas to the table, and in a scientifically 

competitive environment that leads to a better scientific 

device.

Q. What will happen at the end of the ITER project?

Holtkamp: The fusion program is very international, very 

widespread. People are already anticipating that ITER 

will be successful and are thinking about the next step—a 

prototype commercial fusion reactor called DEMO. In 

order to build that, ITER has to work. You have to achieve 

your scientific goals because that means the concepts you’re 

putting forward are feasible. Nevertheless, I agree that one 

should always think ahead. Also, while ITER is operating 

over 25 to 30 years, the knowledge will gradually improve 

and grow, and the next step can be better defined. 

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies 

of the U.S. government or the ITER parties.
31 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

Margarett K. Davis, MD, 

MPH, is director of BOTUSA, 

a partnership between 

Botswana’s Ministry of 

Health and the U.S. Centers 

for Disease Control and 

Prevention.

The sub-Saharan African nation of Botswana is at the 

epicenter of the worldwide HIV pandemic. About 24 

percent of the population between ages 15 and 49 carry 

the virus—one of the world’s highest prevalence rates.

The 2006 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, issued 

by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS 

in May 2006, reported 18,000 deaths from the disease 

last year. Deaths of young adults in recent years have 

left 120,000 orphans, nearly 7 percent of Botswana’s 

population.

BOTUSA 

A Partnership in Disease Research

Courtesy of BOTUSA

Courtesy of Margarett K Davis, MD

In Botswana, an Isoniazid Preventive Therapy Programme nurse shares a light moment with a client.

Margarett K. Davis
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 32 eJOURNAL USA 

AIDS is known as a fatal disease, but the actual cause 

of death for many victims is tuberculosis (TB), the most 

frequently occurring opportunistic disease that attacks the 

weakened immune system of HIV-positive persons. In 

fact, a study conducted jointly by U.S. Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention (CDC) and Botswana researchers 

has shown that 38 percent of AIDS deaths in Botswana 

were actually due to TB.

The dual occurrence of TB and HIV infections 

is known as a co-epidemic. It is a painful burden for 

this landlocked nation of 1.7 million people, but the 

Botswana government is recognized for progressive and 

comprehensive policies to deal with the disease.

Since 1995, Botswana’s Ministry of Health and the 

CDC have collaborated on programs and research to 

address the AIDS crisis. The partnership, called BOTUSA 

(pronounced bo-TOO-sah), involves more than 170 

international, local, and support staff working to provide 

technical assistance, consultation, funding, program 

implementation, and research devoted to prevention, care, 

support, and surveillance of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and 

related conditions.

The principal goal of BOTUSA’s TB-HIV research is 

to expand knowledge of the relationship between epidemic 

tuberculosis and HIV disease in resource-constrained 

settings to develop better prevention strategies for TB 

control in Botswana and similar environments.

The major achievement of this more than 10-year-old 

research collaboration is a preventive therapy program. 

Using isoniazid, a proven TB preventive therapy, the 

program is attempting to prevent tuberculosis in up to 

60 percent of people living with HIV. The Isoniazid 

Preventive Therapy (IPT) Programme, the first of its kind 

to be introduced anywhere in the world, is working to 

put all persons in the country living with HIV/AIDS on a 

preventive regimen of isoniazid to keep TB at bay.

Enrollment in the IPT program has also meant that 

HIV-infected persons are getting better access to care and 

antiretroviral drugs.

Health officials hoped the isoniazid treatment would 

provide a better-than-60-percent protection rate and 

longer lasting protection against active TB, however, 

so CDC and the Ministry of Health are conducting a 

trial involving 2,000 people to determine if continuous 

isoniazid therapy prevents more disease than the six-month 

course of drug prophylaxis.

Along with the latest projects, BOTUSA has produced 

a significant amount of research that has contributed to 

the world’s body of knowledge about TB in the AIDS era, 

including surveys of drug-resistant TB, the population’s TB 

infection rate, and the behavior and responses of patients 

and clinicians living amid a co-epidemic.

BOTUSA also provides more thorough training for 

Botswana’s urban and rural health care workers, an activity 

that will result in improved disease surveillance, patient 

screening, and care.

Botswana is also one of 15 target nations receiving 

assistance under the President’s Emergency Plan for 

AIDS Relief. The United States has provided funding for 

purchase of antiretroviral drugs and contributed to the 

development and implementation of national systems 

for training, quality assurance, and guidelines applied to 

clinical delivery of antiretroviral therapy, HIV laboratory, 

and monitoring and evaluation of antiretroviral therapy. 

These contributions have strengthened the success of 

Botswana’s national strategy against AIDS. 
33 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

China, Russia, and the United States have joined forces 

to build and manage a fiber optic network that circles 

the Northern Hemisphere, creating a high-bandwidth 

Internet-like system that links scientists, educators, and 

students worldwide. The Global 

Ring Network for Advanced 

Applications (GLORIAD, http:

//www.gloriad.org), based at the 

University of Tennessee and the U.S. 

Department of Energy Oak Ridge 

National Laboratory, is funded by 

government agencies in the three 

countries and features partnerships 

with the world’s most advanced 

research and education infrastructures in Canada, the 

Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, and five Scandinavian 

countries.

Greg Cole is principal investigator of the U.S. National 

Science Foundation program that established GLORIAD, 

and the program’s predecessor, NaukaNet, with funding of 

$9.5 million (1998-2009). He co-directed (with Natasha 

Bulashova, now co-principal investigator of GLORIAD) the 

Ford Foundation-funded U.S.-Russian Civic Networking 

Program and directed other U.S.-Russia network 

infrastructure and community development programs funded 

by such organizations as NATO, the U.S. State Department, 

the Eurasia Foundation, Sun Microsystems, and others.

GLORIAD: Cooperation in Research 

and Education

Greg Cole, Principal Investigator 

The control center at CERN—the European Organization for Nuclear Research, a frequent user of the GLORIAD network—combines all control 

rooms for the accelerators, the cryogenic system, and the technical infrastructure.

©CERN

Courtesy of Greg Cole

Greg Cole
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 34 eJOURNAL USA 

GLORIAD grew out of a successful U.S.-Russian 

initiative funded by the United States and Russia 

in 1997 to establish the fi rst high-performance 

Internet between the U.S. and Russian science 

communities. The project, MirNET (later re-named 

NaukaNet), was a collaborative effort among the U.S. 

National Science Foundation (NSF); the University of 

Tennessee; the Russian Academy of Sciences; the Russian 

Ministry of Industry, Science, and Technology; and the 

Russian Research Center/Kurchatov Institute.

The idea was to connect research and education 

institutions in the United States via a major network 

exchange point in Chicago called STAR TAP—now 

called StarLight—with a similar facility in Moscow that 

connected nearly all research and education institutions 

in Russia. By establishing a fi ber optic circuit across 

the Atlantic Ocean, Europe, and North America that 

connected the endpoints in Chicago and Moscow, we 

linked for the fi rst time most major research and education 

institutions in the two countries.

Over the next several years, partnerships between U.S. 

and Russian scientists increased and network use grew 

dramatically. In 2003, we received permission from NSF to 

extend another connection to Russia, this time across the 

Pacifi c Ocean and, very importantly, through the People’s 

Republic of China. We found partners connected in 

Hong Kong with our partners from the Chinese Academy 

of Sciences, then they connected the circuit from Hong 

Kong through Beijing and up to the Russian border near 

Khabarovsk. Our Russian partners extended their network 

to Khabarovsk, and Russia and China for the fi rst time 

crossed their shared border with a telecommunications 

circuit. At that point, the ring around the Northern 

Hemisphere was complete.

The network was operating in early 2004. Later that 

year, NSF and our Russian and Chinese sponsors agreed to 

fund our new fi ve-year program called GLORIAD, which 

expanded the service capacity of the ring around the Earth 

and implemented a 

new architecture for an 

advanced Internet. The 

new architecture lets 

us provide dedicated 

circuits to individual 

science collaborators 

that they can use 

for hours, days, or 

months, in addition to 

the shared services—

like e-mail and 

videoconferencing—

that we continue to 

provide.

In the last 

several years, science 

applications have 

grown to the point 

where some groups 

need the equivalent of 

their own Internet for 

a short time—either to 

move a lot of data or to ensure a quality experience, for 

example, in streaming high-defi nition video or remotely 

operating an electron microscope. The shared Internet 

is good for applications like e-mail that are not time or 

quality sensitive. But if you’re remotely steering an electron 

microscope, you need an instantaneous response. That’s 

one of the reasons we are building what we call a hybrid 

architecture with GLORIAD that allows us to provide 

dedicated circuits to scientists along with a shared Internet 

for their e-mail and Web applications.

The next step in developing GLORIAD was adding 

the Republic of Korea/Korea Institute of Science and 

The route of an early version of the GLORIAD network that passes through Chicago, Amsterdam, Moscow, 

Novosibirsk, Zabajkal’sk, Manzhouli, Beijing, and Hong Kong.

Courtesy of National Science Foundation/T.Schindler 

Chicago

Beijing

Hong 

Kong

Zabajkal’sk,

Manzhouli

Novosibirsk

Moscow Amsterdam
35 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

Technology Information as our fourth core member. They 

joined the project in 2005 and engineered and funded, 

thanks to the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology, 

a 10-gigabit circuit from Hong Kong, China, to Daejeon, 

Republic of Korea, to Seattle, Washington. This was the 

first piece of GLORIAD engineered to provide hybrid 

services. Our goal is to have the network operating around 

the Earth at 10 gigabits per second, and we’re getting 

there one step at a time. With 10 gigabits per second, 

for example, we could support 25,000 videoconferences 

simultaneously, or roughly 1 million Internet telephone 

calls. Today, between the United States and China, and 

between the United States and Russia, we can support 

about a fourth of that.

The single biggest application running on GLORIAD 

at the moment is a connection between a high-energy 

physics institute in Italy and a cosmic ray detector facility, 

high in the mountains of Tibet, operated by the Chinese 

Academy of Sciences. An enormous amount of data is 

collected for analysis by scientists in Italy and China. That 

stream of traffic runs 24 hours a day. In the last hour, as I 

write this article, we’ve seen about 4 gigabytes of data travel 

between the sites.

Our second biggest application today is a data transfer 

from a NASA division, Engineering for Complex Systems, 

to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. We see a lot of space 

science research, particularly satellite 

imagery and atmospheric science 

data. Atmospheric sciences—climate 

scientists and weather forecasters—

are among the heavier network 

users. These include the National 

Center for Atmospheric Research in 

Colorado, the Chinese Academy of 

Sciences in Beijing, and the Russian 

Hydrometeorological Center in 

Moscow.

We recently met with our 

GLORIAD partners in Moscow, 

where we learned about interesting 

telemedical applications. Our Russian 

partners have developed equipment 

that uses data from magnetic resonance 

imaging equipment to produce threedimensional, life-size polymer models 

of patient organs, including the brain. It 

requires an enormous amount of data. 

These models are then used for analysis 

and for preparing appropriate surgical plans.

These are just a few examples of applications that you 

can’t run over today’s Internet, even with a broadband 

connection. That Internet just does not support the quality 

or throughput our science communities need.

One of the issues we deal with is cybersecurity—all 

the countries involved in GLORIAD try to deal with 

it collaboratively. We’ve developed some interesting 

applications that allow us to monitor use of the network, 

and we’re developing some capabilities now to monitor 

abuse of the network. One of the problems we have 

at times is denial of service attacks, in which people 

orchestrate flooding a site, say in Moscow, with data from 

many sites around the world simultaneously, essentially 

shutting down the site. The sites receive so much data that 

the computing device can no longer keep up. There are 

many examples of how people misuse communications 

networks, and one important part of our effort in the 

United States is to research and implement safeguards 

against those abuses.

Throughout the project’s development, network 

use has been limited to the research and education 

communities. Most of our customers are university 

researchers, but most of our traffic comes from national 

laboratories and other federally funded research facilities—

including NASA, the Department of Energy, the National 

U.S., Russian, and Chinese scientists involved in the Compact Muon Solenoid Collaboration at CERN 

use the high-capacity GLORIAD network to transmit results of their experiments.

.

©CERN
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 36 eJOURNAL USA 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the 

National Institutes of Health.

More than half our traffic today with Russia and 

China is sourced at federally funded facilities, where the 

big data archives reside. Most traffic is to and from our 

international partners—Russia, China, South Korea, and 

now the Netherlands, Canada, and the Scandinavian 

countries. Through a network called NORDUnet, our 

newest partners are Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, 

and Iceland. NORDUnet is one of the most innovative 

networking groups in the world. They were involved 

in developing the early international Internet and have 

continued to be innovators in developing advanced 

network services. They will be contributing to GLORIAD 

a wavelength (a 10-gigabit-per-second circuit) from the 

Netherlands across Europe and to as close to the Russian 

border as possible.

In a sense, the network is about two things. It’s 

connecting computers and instrumentation to allow 

scientists to share ideas and data, but it’s also about 

improving our ability to communicate.

One thing for sure about GLORIAD, no matter how 

fast we move on increasing capacity and services on the 

network, the various science groups out there are moving 

faster. We’re seeing many terabytes (1 trillion bytes) of data 

transferred each month and expect petabytes (1 quadrillion 

bytes) in the not-so-distant future. So it’s a real challenge 

for us, but it’s a good challenge. 
37 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006

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Award for International Scientific Cooperation

http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/awards/int/index.shtml

AAAS annually awards a $5,000 prize to an individual or 

small group that has made an outstanding contribution to 

international cooperation in science or engineering.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/GlobalHealth

The Gates Foundation provides grants to established 

international organizations working to solve urgent health 

challenges in the developing world.

Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar Campus

http://www.qatar.cmu.edu

Carnegie Mellon, a highly regarded U.S. research 

university, offers undergraduate programs in business and 

computer science in Qatar. The university aims to provide 

an interdisciplinary, culturally sensitive course of study that 

will be among the leading programs in the region.

GlobalHealth.gov

http://www.globalhealth.gov

GlobalHealth.gov is an Internet gateway produced by the 

Office of Global Health of the U.S. Department of Health 

and Human Services. The site presents information on 

U.S. and international activities in this area, along with 

funding, employment, and training opportunities in global 

health.

International Council for Science (ICSU)

http://www.icsu.org/index.php

The council is a nongovernmental organization 

representing 107 national scientific bodies and 

29 international scientific unions. ICSU sponsors 

international and regional networks of scientists working 

in related areas, acts as a discussion forum, and sometimes 

represents the global scientific community.

International Heliophysical Year (IHY)

http://ihy2007.org

The 50th anniversary of space exploration will be 

celebrated in 2007. In honor of this event, IHY has created 

a “Great Observatory” to advance understanding of the 

interconnected system of Earth, sun, and heliosphere.

International Space University

http://www.isunet.edu

The International Space University offers graduate training 

to future leaders of the global space community at its 

central campus in Strasbourg, France, and in locations 

around the world.

International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor 

(ITER)

http://www.iter.org

ITER is an international research and development 

partnership designed to demonstrate the potential of 

fusion power. 

Millennium Science Initiative (MSI)

http://www.msi-sig.org

MSI is a partnership of organizations and individuals 

promoting world-class science and engineering capacity in 

developing countries. 

NASA

International Space Station—Science Operation News

http://scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov

Visit the International Space Station’s NASA Science 

Command page for a variety of features on topics such as 

space science, mission status updates, expedition pages, 

astronaut biographies, video, Webcams, and partnership 

links.

Science.gov

http://www.science.gov

Science.gov is a gateway to authoritative science 

information provided by U.S. government agencies.

Internet Resources

Online resources for international scientific cooperation
GLOBAL ISSUES / OCTOBER 2006 40 eJOURNAL USA

SciTechResources.gov

http://www.scitechresources.gov

SciTechResources.gov is a U.S. government database 

catalog that provides access to government resources 

focused on science, technology, and engineering topics.

U.S. Department of Energy Office of Policy and 

International Affairs

https://ostiweb.osti.gov/iaem

The Department of Energy International Agreements 

Database provides access to multilateral and bilateral 

science agreements involving the United States and other 

countries. The site also offers access to a publications 

library, speeches and testimony, and information about 

international scientific initiatives.

U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science

Fusion Energy Sciences Program

http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/internationalactivities.shtml

This site covers the international activities of the Fusion 

Energy Science Program, with related links to conferences 

and meetings, reports, and presentations. Also available 

on the site is information about the International 

Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor partnership 

and other international collaborations involving the 

Department of Energy.

U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and 

Technical Information (OSTI)

https://www.osti.gov

OSTI aims to advance the diffusion of scientific knowledge 

and creativity at the national and international levels. 

U.S. Department of State Bureau of Oceans and 

International Environmental and Scientific Affairs 

(OES)

http://www.state.gov/g/oes

The OES Bureau of the State Department has an 

extensive portfolio of issues including oceans, climate 

change, sustainable development, environment, science, 

technology, space, and international health. The Office 

of the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of 

State is also located in this bureau.

U.S. Geological Survey Biology Partnerships

http://biology.usgs.gov/partnership/international.html

The Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological 

Survey is developing international partnerships in three key 

areas: sharing biological data, standardizing methodologies, 

and offering training and assistance to facilitate scientific 

exchange. 

U.S. Global Climate Change Science Program

http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/about/international.htm

With support from the U.S. Global Climate Change 

Research Program, U.S. scientists and research institutions 

coordinate program activities with their counterparts in 

other nations. The United States is also party to several 

climate change cooperation agreements, both bilateral and 

multilateral.

U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)

John E. Fogarty International Center for Advanced 

Study in the Health Sciences

http://www.fic.nih.gov

The Fogarty International Center advances the NIH 

mission through international partnerships and addresses 

global health challenges through collaborative research and 

training programs.

WiRED International

http://www.wiredinternational.org

WiRED International is a nongovernmental organization 

dedicated to providing health information and 

communications resources to developing and post-conflict 

areas of the world, now serving nearly 1 million people in 

11 countries on four continents.

World Space Week

http://www.spaceweek.org/index.html

Established by the United Nations General Assembly in 

1999, World Space Week is designed to foster international 

space cooperation and educate people about the benefits of 

space exploration. Participants in 50 nations celebrate the 

week October 4-10 each year with a variety of events. 

The U.S. Department of State assumes no responsibility for the content and 

availability of the resources from other agencies and organizations listed above. All 

Internet links were active as of August 2006.
NASA astronaut Joseph Tanner waves toward the digital still camera of his space-walk colleague, astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, during 

extravehicular activity duties at the International Space Station on September 14, 2006.

 ©AP Images/NASA