2.  A former Bank of America chief technology
officer in New York, NY, Rao Chalasani
contributes to the international emergency
medical aid organization Doctors Without
Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
Based in New Jersey since leaving BofA,
engineer Rao Chalasani joins many other
charitable donors whose support helps the
more than 30,000-member MSF field staff to
provide critical health care to people
throughout the world suffering from
catastrophic events, such as epidemics.

3.  To protect the lives and health of people in
the poorest regions of the world when they
are affected by epidemics of potentially
deadly diseases, MSF established the
Access Campaign in 1999. The campaign
advocates for greater access to diagnostic
tests, solutions to lower the cost of effective
treatments for diseases such as HIV/AIDS,
and increased emphasis on the creation of
new drugs to treat maladies that are not
viewed as profitable avenues for research
and development because they primarily
affect people in underdeveloped nations.

4.  Due to the fact that MSF often responds to outbreaks
of ignored diseases for which current treatments are
no longer viable, such as kala azar and Chagas
disease, the organization has also co-founded the
Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi).
Opening channels to work with pharmaceutical
companies and researchers through this initiative,
MSF utilizes DNDi as a platform to shift the orientation
of medicine development further toward fulfilling vital
needs over regard for profit potential. Among the
initiative’s accomplishments thus far are the
introduction of nifurtimox-eflornithine combination
therapy (NECT), an effective treatment for sleeping
sickness, and the new anti-malaria medicine ASAQ.

5.  Along with drawing attention to the difficulties
faced in treating these neglected diseases,
MSF continues to respond to more widely
recognized epidemics of potentially fatal, fast-
spreading contagious diseases, such as
measles, cholera, and meningitis. The
organization’s work also involves the
prevention and relief of HIV/AIDS and
tuberculosis, including provision of expensive
and time-consuming therapy for patients with
drug- and multi-drug–resistant strains of TB. MSF
medical units have responded to cholera
outbreaks in Haiti, eruptions of dengue fever in
Honduras, and the spread of meningitis in Mali.