April 14, 2025

S2 Ep2: Julia Cummiskey - on virus research in Uganda

40 minutes

In this episode, Richard and Mia talk to Julia Cummiskey, a professor of the history of medicine right here at Johns Hopkins University. She chats with us about her new book, Virus Research in 20th-Century Uganda: Between Local and Global.

For more about the Uganda Virus Research Institute, visit https://www.uvri.go.ug/

For more about the Rakai Health Sciences Program, visit https://www.rhsp.org/

A note from Julia: "I wish I had mentioned how important their work is and how much it means when they get donations to help support that work!"

Works referenced in the episode:

Marissa Mika, Africanizing Oncology: Creativity, Crisis, and Cancer in Uganda

Adriana Petryna, When Experiments Travel: Clinical Trials and the Global Search for Human Subjects

Johanna Crane, Scrambling for Africa: AIDS, Expertise, and the Rise of American Global Health Science

Robin Wolffe Scheffler, A Contagious Cause: The American Hunt for Cancer Viruses and the Rise of Molecular Medicine (not referenced in the episode but a great book about the race to discover oncoviruses!)

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For the Medical Record is a podcast from Johns Hopkins University's Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine, hosted by Research Associated Richard Del Rio and Postdoctoral Fellow Mia Levenson. New episodes are released biweekly.

In these episodes, we talk to people affiliated with the Center to discuss their research within the history of medicine and the medical humanities. We ask them why their work matters, and how history and the humanities can help us to better understand debates and practices within medicine and care today.

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