Year in Review - ngdi.ubc.cangdi.ubc.ca/files/2010/12/NGDI-UBC-Year-in-Review.pdf · Jennifer Love...
Transcript of Year in Review - ngdi.ubc.cangdi.ubc.ca/files/2010/12/NGDI-UBC-Year-in-Review.pdf · Jennifer Love...
2010 Year in Review
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Allan Berezny Assistant Dean, Development, Faculty of Science Jennifer Choi Co‐President, UAEM‐UBC, Graduate Student Rebecca Goulding Post‐Doc Fellow, ISIS a Research Centre, Sauder School of Business Robert Hancock Professor, Microbiology & Immunology; Director, Centre for Molecular Diseases and Immunity Research Liz Hancock Kevin Hooi Co‐President, UAEM‐UBC, Graduate Student Janis Horne Director of Development, Pharmaceutical Sciences Terry Kellam Director, Office of the Vice President Research and International Charles Larson Clinical Professor, Department of Pediatrics; Director, Centre for International Child Health Angus Livingstone Managing Director, University‐Industry Liaison Office
Jennifer Love Associate Professor, Faculty of Chemistry Emily Marden Senior Research Associate, ISIS a Research Centre, Sauder School of Business Jerry Spiegel Associate Professor, School of Population and Public Health James Tansey Executive Director, ISIS a Research Centre, Sauder School of Business Kishor Wasan Professor, Distinguished University Scholar, Pharmaceutical Sciences Kaley Wilson Project Development Scientist, Centre for Drug Research and Development
2010 has been a break‐out year for the Neglected Global Diseases Initiative at UBC. Starting with our Workshop at the Peter Wall
Institute in January, to our first Annual Neglected Global Diseases Initiative
Symposium at the Chan Centre in September, the NGDI has made its pres‐
ence felt on the UBC campus.
In a short time the initiative has helped educate the UBC community
about neglected global diseases; highlighted the outstanding work of our
colleagues and facilitated collaborations among scientist scholars from
different disciplines across the campus. To date, NGDI‐associated researchers have received more than $9 million in funding for projects aimed at improving health outcomes for the world’s poorest people. It has been a wonderful year and we thank our membership for their enthusiasm and support! We look forward to a bright future in 2011 and beyond.
Dr. Kishor Wasan
NGDI Working Group Members: December, 2010
The Neglected Global Diseases Initiative at the University of British Columbia #103—6190 Agronomy Road Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z3
For more information contact the Coordinator: Jocelyn Conway Telephone: (604) 827‐5348 Email: [email protected] Website: www.ngdi.ubc.ca
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January 11 Stakeholders Meeting
In early January over 50 UBC
stakeholders met to discuss a model for and strategy in developing this new initiative. Topics of the day were: defining a niche, outcomes measurement, communications, funding models, and training.
Outcomes from the meeting provided guidance for the first year that included: hiring a coordinator, hosting a neglected diseases symposium, surveying the UBC community for research strengths and interests, and facilitating meetings across disciplinary boundaries.
July 23 Gates Foundation Site Visit The NGDI Working Group
organized a one‐day site visit for Dr. Thomas Kanyok, Senior Program Officer of the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation to highlight the areas of research that members are doing.
During the day Dr. Kanyok visited with two VP’s offices, Chemistry, Microbiology, School of Population and Public Health, University‐Industry Liaison Office, Development Office and the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines.
September 18‐19 First NGDI Symposium The symposium was a great
success with over 150 attendees overall and prestigious speakers from six countries. This multi‐disciplinary group brought home the awareness to the audience of the urgency and importance of global health work in neglected diseases.
Introductory remarks were given by VP John Hepburn and closing remarks by Member of Parliament Dr. Keith Martin.
Highlighted speakers included; Dr. Carol Dahl, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Allan Saul, Novartis Vaccines Institute, Dr. Denis Martin, Drugs for Neglected Diseases, and Dr. Shyam Sundar, Kala‐azar Medical Institute in India.
December 9 Parasitic Research Cluster
Our first meeting with
researchers involving a specific disease cluster took place on December 9 and involved 15 principal investigators and labs.
Malaria and Leishmaniasis were the two diseases that provided the most discussion in areas of drug synthesis and development, as well as, education and economic analyses.
This group will now follow up on processes started during the session and will come together again in late January.
M e e t i n g H i g h l i g h t s
Drs. Carol Dahl, Allan Saul, Denis Martin, and Shyam Sundar speak at the First Annual Neglected Global Diseases Symposium, held in the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC Vancouver Campus.
Dr. Rosemin Kassam Rosemin’s project titled: Defining a sustainable
community self‐management system, educates mothers of children under 5 with malaria in Uganda. Her funding of $100,000 was provided by a CIHR Catalyst Grant in Primary and Community‐Based Healthcare. and child mortality.
Dr. Jerry Spiegel Jerry’s project was a spin off from his work on
a six year CIDA grant in Ecuador. This new project of $300,000 was funded through the WHO TDR Special Programme for Research on Diseases of
Poverty and the IDRC. His group will take three years to evaluate the effec‐tiveness, cost and acceptability of an Eco‐Bio‐Social approach to controlling and preventing Dengue in Ecuador.
Neglected Global Diseases Initiative The Vice President Research and International
office awarded the initiative with $10,000 from the Inter‐national Research Collabora‐tion Workshop Grant. This grant supported the collaboration of the NGDI and Dr. Shyam Sundar of Banaras Hindu University and the Kala‐azar Medical Research Institute.
Dr. Tobias Kollmann Tobi’s laboratory entered into a
collaboration with Advaxis, Inc in New Jersey valued at $465,000 over five years. He will use Advaxis propriety Listeria vaccine vectors for the develop‐ment of novel infectious disease applications and will employ a post‐doctoral fellow dedicated to the creation and assessment of novel infectious disease vaccines.
Dr. Peter von Dadelszen Peter’s $7,000,000 Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation grant is to test new strategies for the monitoring, preven‐tion, and treatment of pre‐eclampsia. This four‐year international research and community‐level interventional project will study, develop and
implement a set of clinical guidelines tailored for lower– and middle‐income countries.
There are five components of this 15‐country endeavor: a calcium intake clinical trial; validating tools for diagnoses and risk factors; testing the impact of community‐level care to reduce adverse maternal and peri‐natal outcomes; establishing an international collaboration for clinical data; and lastly, knowledge translation to update the relevant WHO guidelines.
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M e m b e r s F u n d e d P r o j e c t s
O t h e r P r o j e c t N e w s iCo Therapeutics’ Oral Amphotericin B project for the treatment of Leishmaniasis has received
Orphan Drug Status from the FDA which will enable it to received certain tax and marketing incentives.
The Accessible Science Initiative completed a successful pilot project in collaboration with the University of Tolima in Columbia. This student program trained over 1,000 students and over fifty teachers in reaching the goal to create sustainable science education and research programs.
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A d v o c a c y November—Canadian Academy of Health
Sciences Call for Evidence for Canada’s Strategic Role in Global Health. Members sending individ‐ual evidence (B. Hancock, J. Love and C. Larson) and invited presentation representing NGDI (K. Wasan).
P r e s e n t a t i o n s The following list of presentations highlights
talks given by members to communicate the work and vision of the NGDI and research projects on Neglected Diseases:
February 3—Developing Treatments for Neglected Tropical Diseases UBC (B. Hancock)
March 24—Introduction to NGDI– UBC: World TB Day UBC (K. Wasan)
April 14—Developing Treatments for Neglected Tropical Diseases UBC (B. Hancock)
April 26—Development & Evaluation of a Novel Oral AmB Formulation for the Treatment of Systemic Fungal Infections and Drug‐Resistant Visceral Leishmaniasis: McGill Global Health Con‐ference (K. Wasan)
May 23—Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (K. Wasan)
September 19—The Neglected Global Diseases Initiative: UBC (B. Hancock)
September 22—Address ing Socia l Determinants of NTDs in Devising an Integrated Control Strategy: The Causes and Impacts of Neglected Tropical and Zoonotic Diseases NIH (J. Spiegel)
November 5—The Neglected Global Diseases Initiative: UBC Science and Arts One (K. Wasan)
November 9—Effect of Cell Phone SMS on Antiretroviral Adherence in Kenya: a randomized controlled trial: mHealth Summit DC (R. Lester)
November 20—The Neglected Global Diseases Initiative: UAEM University Neglected Disease and Innovation Symposium DC (K. Wasan).
P a n e l s January 9—Global Health, Sustainability, and
Leadership: UBC Student Leadership conference (panel: C. Larson, J. Tansey, K. Wasan)
October 21—Panel presentation, Health Mothers, Health Babies UBC (F. Shroff).
P o s t e r s
September 20—The Neglected Global Diseases Initiative: Poster at Second Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health WA (J. Choi)
October 21—Panel presentation, Health Mothers, Health Babies UBC (F. Shroff) and Neglected Global Diseases Initiative poster (J. Conway).
O f f i c e H i g h l i g h t s
P u b l i c a t i o n s
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Jocelyn was hired in late April of this year to coordinate the initiative. Below are some of the projects that she has helped the NGDI develop this year: Representing the NGDI outside of UBC in meetings
and working groups Building relationships within the UBC administrative
community Coordinating the symposium and meetings with the
working group and members Updating the NGDI website with a UBC look and feel,
updating the url and creating a name recognition brand, resources and project files
Developing communication tools with the member‐ship such as enewsletters, surveys and press releases
Collating data and researcher specific information Collecting resource materials pertaining to neglected
diseases
Bobovic S, Wasan K. 2010. Impact of the Trade‐Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement on India as a Supplier of Generic Antiretrovirals. Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, pub‐lished online doi:10.1002/jps.22326.
Brown S, Bobovich S, and Wasan K. 2010. Commentary: Increasing Access to Essential Medicines: Diversify‐ing Canada’s Approach. Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vol X p 1‐5. doi: 10.1002/jps.22300.
Gabriel P, Goulding R, Morgan‐Jonker C, Turvey S, & Nickerson J. 2010. Fostering Canadian Drug Research and Development for Neglected Tropical Diseases. Open Medicine. Vol 4(2).
Larson CP, Nasrin D, Saha A, Chowdhury MI, Qadri F. The added benefit of zinc supplementation following zinc treatment of acute childhood diarrhea: a randomized, double‐blind field trial. Trop Med Int Health. 2010 Jun;15(6):754‐61
Lester RT, Ritvo P, Mills EJ, Kariri A, Karanja S, Chung MH, Jack W, et al. 2010. Effects of a mobile phone short message service on antiretroviral treatment adherence in Kenya (WelTel Kenya1): a randomized trial. The Lancet Vol376. pp. 1838–45.
Spiegel JM, Dharamsi S, Wasan KM, Yassi A, Singer B, et al. 2010. Which New Approaches to Tackling Ne‐glected Tropical Diseases Show Promise? PLoS Med 7(5): e1000255. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000255.
Wasan EK, Gershkovich P, Zhao J, Zhu X, Werbovetz K, et al. (2010) A Novel Tropically Stable Oral Ampho‐tericin B Formulation (iCo‐010) Exhibits Efficacy against Visceral Leishmaniasis in a Murine Model. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 4(12): e913. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0000913
“2011 promises to be a year of continued forward momentum for this initiative. I look forward to getting to know more of you personally, providing continued support, and representing the NGDI membership effectively.”