What is TBsusgent?
TBsusgent is the acronym for a 36-month capacity development project funded by the European Union (EU), as part of the Seventh Framework Programme Health Theme (call identifier: FP7-Health-2007-B). PI: Keertan Dheda (UCL, UK)
Start date: 01/11/2008 End date: 30/12/2011
Project full title:
“Sustaining research momentum over the coming decades: mentoring the next generation of researchers for tuberculosis”.
Background summary:
Tuberculosis (TB) is a public health emergency of catastrophic proportions. The relative lack of funded investigators and TB research over the last several decades has been acknowledged; The Stop TB Partnership and Global Stop TB Plan has now included ‘TB research’ as a key area of focus in the fight against TB. Indeed, the magnitude of funding for TB-related research has increased enormously in recent years. However, in order to sustain research momentum over the next few decades, suitably-qualified investigators, who are the next generation of TB researchers particularly from developing countries, will have to be nurtured and supported. If Africa is to play a meaningful role in contributing to global health research in the future, this continent will require an accelerated development of skilled, biomedical researchers of an international calibre. There is also an urgent need to invigorate the ageing academic community in countries such as South Africa and India with dynamic young scientists who are capable of developing their own internationally-recognized research programs. However, our view is that early scientific training, culminating in a post-graduate qualification, is only the first phase of career development. Subsequent advancement for nascent developing country researchers is typified by a lack of progress after obtaining the desired post-graduate qualification (e.g. masters or PhD) because of inadequate mentorship. Thus, our co-ordination action will encompass a programme that will train researchers but also provide post-training mentorship access through a network of eminent scientists, even after the co-ordination action has ceased. Funding is not requested for the latter phase and will be provided by the network as an altruistic gesture in the form of intellectual input, and on a voluntary basis, by scientists that are committed to advancement of science in developing countries. Ongoing mentorship (post PhD and masters) will be directed by and facilitated through the current PI (Dr K Dheda, UCL). We have assurances from several experienced and research-savvy investigators (many hold EU grants) that they will continue to provide mentorship to the students that are trained by this grant. These investigators are Prof A Zumla (UCL), Prof G Rook (UCL), Prof Mike Hoelscher (UM), Prof S Sharma (AIIMS) and Prof M Alladi (SVIMS), Prof M Pai, (McGill), and Prof L Sechi (US). Thus there is an experienced and research-savvy team of senior scientists that will provide continued mentorship. The communication between the student and the mentors will be directed through Dr K Dheda, and his absence Prof Zumla.
The continued mentorship will be achieved in the following ways:
- Advice on career progression.
- Assistance e with acquiring training posts locally and abroad (several of the mentors have research sites based in Africa, India and Europe).
- Advice on grant writing (suitability of prospective grants, critique and suggestions for improving the candidates grant applications).
- Advice on the writing and flow of peer-reviewed manuscripts.
- Help with identifying prospective grants that the trained candidates could apply for.
- Advice on capacity building and generation of sustainable research infrastructure in developing countries.
- Advice on teaching and training of incumbents that are junior to the trainees and who may in the future be under the supervision of the current trainees (it is envisaged that the current bunch of students will progress to being independent researchers and thus train their own students).
We unmistakably recognise that TB is a clinical disease and therefore translational and clinically applied field research is crucial; the programme will therefore train both clinical and non-clinical scientists.
This proposal will build upon our current links and programme research (funded by DFID, EU, EDCTP, FIND and CIHR) in multiple African (The Gambia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, Madagascar, Senegal, Zambia), Indian (Delhi, Tirupathi) and European centres (University College London, UCL and Italy (US)). We will also build on our existing collaborations with the UCT Lung Institute and SVIMS.
The overall aim:
The overall aim of the TBsusgent project is to sustain investigator and scientific capacity in developing countries, where TB burden is the highest.
The specific objectives are:
- To develop and manage a clinical-scientist fellowship programme focussed on activities encompassing poverty-related disease i.e. tuberculosis.
- To facilitate career progression of developing country clinical-scientists through a programme offering scientific training and a network of mentors.
The involved sites:
There are seven sites involved. The co-ordinating site is University College London (UCL) UK, and the co-ordinator is Keertan Dheda.
