Producer Mike Patton, center, oversees the shoot.

HSPH Professor Dyann Wirth is a professor and plays one on TV. Well, in a public service announcement more specifically. Wirth, who directs the Harvard Malaria Initiative at HSPH, has shot a television spot for the ExxonMobil Foundation to raise awareness about the continuing and growing problems of malaria, particularly drug-resistant malaria, and about efforts to develop new antimalarial drugs and vaccines.

ExxonMobil Foundation is providing $1 million to the Malaria Initiative over three years to help discover and develop malaria pharmaceuticals through fundamental investigations of the parasite’s biology. Integral to this program is an effort to strengthen research capacity in sub-Saharan countries, with an emphasis on understanding the spread of drug-resistant organisms. Wirth and her group have active collaborative and training programs in Senegal and Nigeria. In parallel, grants were provided to Medicines for Malaria Venture, a Swiss non-profit foundation, and Roll Back Malaria, a World Health Organization (WHO) program. The three grants were announced at Harvard on April 17, 2001. For more information, visit http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/now/apr27/index.html.

Director Jeff Bednarz speaks to a member of the Wirth lab.

Malaria affects millions of people, the majority of whom live in Africa. Between one and three million people die from the disease every year, most of them children. Malaria is preventable and curable if promptly diagnosed and treated. However, the parasites that cause malaria have become resistant to drugs and vaccines traditionally used to combat the disease.

The television spot was shot at HSPH on July 19, when an entourage of 25 television professionals hired by the ExxonMobil Foundation arrived at the school in multiple cars and two trucks, armed with movie cameras, lights, cables, microphones, props, wardrobes and lots and lots of film.

	Dyann Wirth after shooting a scene

The group shot an interview with Wirth, as well as scenes of her interacting with members of her lab and exterior shots of HSPH. Two tables called "base camp" by the crew were set up outside of the Kresge Building. One table was for the production staff. The other was dedicated to the job of one person who spent the day loading and unloading rolls of film. Approximately 9,000 feet of 35-millimeter film were shot, said Mike Patton, producer. For every foot of film eventually used in the announcement, 120 to 150 feet is expected to end up on the cutting room floor, he said

In addition to obtaining the HSPH footage, the film crew will travel to Chad in the fall to shoot scenes for the public service announcement about anti-malaria efforts there. Wirth’s commentary will serve as a thread between the HSPH and African scenes, said Patton.

Two versions of the television spot will be made, said Patton. One will be 30 seconds long, and the other will be 60 seconds long. They are expected to run in early 2003.