Research Library

Saudi Arabia's role in global energy markets is changing. The kingdom is diverting crude oil into an expanding refining sector and moving beyond its role as global “swing supplier” of crude oil, writes Jim Krane.

Last year’s China-Russia gas energy deals pack some significant economic and geopolitical clout, but many Western commentators have lost sight of the humanitarian ends for which the gas deals were designed.

The Gulf of Mexico area — including both U.S. and Mexican states — is emerging as a hot spot for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), including dengue, Chikungunya and West Nile virus infection. This article highlights the important opportunities for international cooperation between the governments of the U.S. and Mexico and both public sector and private scientific institutions located in the Gulf of Mexico region in order to control or eliminate selected NTDs.

In addition to their therapeutic potential, cord blood banks raise ethical and regulatory questions, especially in emerging markets in the Arab world. In this article, the authors review cord blood banking in five countries in the region (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) that were selected for their different CB banking policies and initiatives.

The international Human Microbiome Project trumpeted the coming of age of the field of metagenomics, the study of entire communities of microbes and their contributions to health and disease. In parallel, the field of metabolomics emerged as the systematic, nonbiased analysis of all low-molecular-weight small molecules, or metabolites, produced by a system in response to an environmental stimulus. These fields have enabled discoveries pertinent to a number of human conditions — namely, acute gastroenteritis, antibiotic-associated diarrhea, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, liver disease, undernutrition and obesity — and have begun to shed new light on multiple aspects of the neglected tropical diseases.

The success of Yemen's efforts to control neglected tropical diseases provides important lessons for conducting disease control activities in the face of civil unrest, extreme instability and poverty, writes Peter Hotez, fellow in disease and poverty, in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Peter Hotez discusses his work on neglected tropical diseases and the future direction of disease elimination and science diplomacy. Published in the journal Molecular Medicine, December 2014.

Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, Texas, suffered an unprecedented downfall into violence and chaos between 2007 and 2012. It came to be known in 2010 as “the most dangerous city in the world.” What can cause a city to spiral downward into bloodshed and turmoil in the way that Ciudad Juárez did? This article makes the argument that the city's descent into violence and chaos is the result of a number of poor decisions made over the course of the 40 years preceding the bloodshed of the years under examination.

Today, neglected tropical diseases represent some of the most common afflictions of global Christianity. Through NTDs, a renewed dialogue with faith-based organizations that work in developing countries and elements of the hierarchy of the Christian church could make an important difference in global Christianity and the lives of the world's poorest people.

Rising populations and growing wealth have coupled with low domestic prices to propel huge increases in energy consumption within the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. The trend of large and continuing increases in demand threatens assumptions about the sustainability of the region’s oil exports Politically difficult reforms that moderate consumption can extend the longevity of exports, and perhaps, the regimes themselves.