Perspectives in Health Magazine
The Magazine of the Pan American Health Organization
Volume 8, Number 2, 2003

The Pedro Kourí Institute, founded in 1937, has evolved into a world-class player in the global fight against tropical and infectious diseases.

A turnoff at kilometer 6 of Havana's Novia del Mediodía ("Noontime Bride") highway leads through the gates of the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK), one of Cuba's institutional crown jewels. Inside the modern 10-building complex, the island's top medical scientists carry out research in more than a dozen fields, from biotechnology to treatment of HIV/AIDS.

In his office, the institute's director, Gustavo P. Kourí, receives a visitor with a smile that brightens his chiseled face. On the wall behind him are myriad international and national commendations received by him and his institute over the years, including his most recent prized possession, a medal from the Vatican.

Kourí wears his white lab jacket like a family coat of arms. Continuing the work of his father, the late Pedro Kourí, he has transformed the 66-year-old institute into not only Cuba's leading research and treatment center in tropical medicine and infectious diseases, but also a leading player in these fields worldwide.

In the process, Kourí has acquired his own impressive international credentials. He is director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Research and Training in Medical Malacology and Biological Control of Vectors and Intermediate Hosts, one of three PAHO/WHO collaborating centers that are housed at IPK. He is a member of the Joint Coordinating Board of the Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and a member of the Council of the International Society of Infectious Diseases. He also served on PAHO's Centennial Advisory Board in 2002, the year the organization celebrated its 100th anniversary.

What motivates him? "My country, my institute, my family, my people," he says.

A family affair
The Kourís' battle against tropical diseases began in 1937 when Pedro Kourí created the Institute of Tropical Medicine at the University of Havana. For 20 years, the institute's work focused on Cuba's most worrisome parasitic diseases: malaria, Bancroftian filariasis, hepatic fascioliasis, amoebiasis and other intestinal parasites. Students from the United States, Latin America and other regions came for training in tropical medicine and research. Pedro Kourí represented Cuba at various national and international congresses, including the Third World Congress on Microbiology, held in New York in 1939, where he announced his discovery of a new parasite, Inermicapsifer cubensis. He developed new methods for diagnosing and treating parasitic diseases, presenting these in his four-volume publication, Lessons on Parasitology and Tropical Medicine.

Gustavo was an admiring witness to such accomplishments. "I was very close to my father," he says. "Even as a boy, I worked with my father. As a teenager, I continued and worked with him at the institute."

When Fidel Castro's revolution triumphed, the elder Kourí took the sweeping changes in stride, according to his son. "There was no contradiction with the revolution," recalls Gustavo. "My father and most of his colleagues reacted very favorably. He was of very poor origin and was always focused on the diseases of the poor, so he had a very advanced feeling in relation to socialism."

Following in his father's footsteps, Gustavo Kourí has cultivated international ties while helping his own country conquer its most threatening infectious diseases. (Photos by Annemarie Christensen)

It seemed natural that Gustavo Kourí would follow in his father's footsteps, entering medical school and graduating in 1962. He was trained in surgery and pathology and did his medical internship in parasitology. He also spent a year at Minas del Frio in the Sierra Maestra for his clinical rural practice in general medicine.

It was in the mountains that he met Castro, two years after the revolution. Kourí was stationed at a school for primary and secondary teachers. During the conflict, the site had served as a military base under the command of the legendary Che Guevara, and it had a 20-bed hospital used by the revolutionaries. Castro, now president as well as comandante, showed up one evening and spent four hours talking with Kourí and the other medical staff-intraining. They discussed the merits of Cuba's rural hospital program, and Castro left the young doctors and nurses with the feeling that he had complete confidence in their work.

After his stint in the mountains, Kourí decided to relicense in microbiology, but in 1965 Castro announced the formation of the National Center for Scientific Research. "It was the first big scientific institute [in Cuba]," Kourí says. Eager to hone his research skills, he joined a team of a dozen colleagues who got the center up and going.

"We called ourselves the 12 crazy doctors," he recalls. They spent two years studying basic sciences, including physics and math, to prepare themselves for research. Kourí was named vice-director of the center in 1968. Twelve years and three posts later he landed at Cuba's Ministry of Higher Education as national director for research and postgraduate studies.

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