Video Credit: Gabriela Zamora-Herrera
46 students from 15 African countries including 12 participants from Zambia and additional students from Mexico, Croatia and India, plus a faculty of 21 from various African countries and Canada, Germany, France, Mexico, and USA joined in Lusaka/Zambia for the one-week interactive course on the “big four” (HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, Covid-19) from 4 to 9 December.
In addition to talks, roundtable discussions, short presentations by participants and poster sessions, the participants worked in small groups in a grant-writing exercise under supervision of faculty mentors. On the last day, each group presented their grant proposal which was evaluated by faculty judges. A great exercise for upcoming real applications!
Overall, the first full in-person course after the pandemic was a great success, thanks to a dedicated faculty, highly motivated students, and excellent organization. Special thanks are due to Bon Holtak and the Immunopaedia team for all the administrative work (including preparation of the online pre-course) to make this course possible.
| Faculty | Topic | Learning Link |
|---|---|---|
| Dieter Kabelitz | Innate Immunity to Viral Infections | Immunity to Viral Infections |
| Kelly McNagny | Adaptive Immunity to Viral Infections | |
| Wendy Burgers | Cellular Immunity to SARS-Cov2 | Immunity to Sars-CoV-2 |
| Jinal Bhiman | Humoral Immunity to SARS-Cov2 | |
| Rosana Pelayo | Emergency hematopoiesis: a seminal innate mechanism to fight inflammatory infectious diseases | |
| Kondwani Jambo | Basic Immunology of HIV | Basic Immunology of HIV |
| Zaza Ndhlovu | The role of tissue resident immune cells in HIV elimination | |
| Lishomwa Ndhlovu | HIV and cancer | |
| Thumbi Ndung’u | Current HIV vaccine design landscape | |
| Jackson Marakalala | Immunology of Tuberculosis | Immunity to Tuberculosis |
| Miossec Pierre | Chronic inflammation and risk of TB | |
| Monde Muyoyeta | Immune responses to TB in HIV infected patients | |
| Sam Kinyanjui | Cellular Aspects of Immunity to Malaria | Immunity to Malaria |
| Azza Idris Hussen | Humoral aspects to Malaria and vaccine development progress and challenges | |
| Manuel Ritter | Schistosomiasis-Challenges to global control of this neglected tropical disease | Immunity to Schistosomiasis |
| William Horsnell | Parasitic nematodes: why should we worry about them? | Immunity to Helminths |
| Yanet Valdez | Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Academia | Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Academia |