University of Ghana Wins Crick African Network Fellowships Worth GBP1,360,728.00 to Promote Health Research in Africa

The University of Ghana has been awarded two out of eight fellowships to leading African scientists worth GBP1,360,728.00 under the Crick Africa Network (CAN) African Career Acceleration Programme. CAN is a strategic partnership between the Francis Crick Institute and five top African institutions, including the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) at the University of Ghana, the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, the Medical Research Council (MRC) Units in The Gambia and Uganda which are under the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Dr. Jerry Joe Harrison, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Ghana, is one of the selected eight African Scientists who have been awarded this year’s fellowship, as part of the second round of fellowships supported by LifeArc, a self-financing medical research charity which is focused on translational research in areas of unmet medical need.

Dr. Harrison’s research focuses on HIV, especially HIV-2, a variant of the virus predominant in West Africa and less studied compared to its HIV-1 counterpart. HIV remains a major public health issue which has contributed to the death of more than 35 million people worldwide. Since the early 1980s, researchers around the world continue to study the mechanisms by which the virus infects and spreads in the body. This has resulted in the development of optimal therapies that enable persons living with HIV (PLWH) to live normal lives.

Dr. Harrison, who is also the General Secretary of UG-UTAG, will be working predominantly at WACCBIP to train students in Structural Biology and Medicinal Chemistry as he continues to develop HIV-2 specific inhibitors. His work is expected to contribute to the understanding of how the virus survives and spreads in cells, as well as the development of new anti-aids drugs.

The other fellowship was awarded to Dr. Abdouramane Camara, a Malian National who is returning to the African continent after 13 years in Europe and will be working at WACCBIP to develop a new clinical test to evaluate the efficacy of vaccines at an early stage and predict long-term protection.

Driven by passion, Dr. Camara has always expressed the desire to return to the continent to establish himself as an independent scientist. Speaking on the opportunity, he says, “This comes at a crucial stage of my postdoc, as I had been constantly exploring the possibility of returning to Africa while training in world-class research in Europe over the past 13 years. I believe it is time for me to return to Africa and contribute to its scientific advancement.

This is a testament to the world-class research environment that has been created at WACCBIP and the University of Ghana, as well as a part of the broader objective of WACCBIP to facilitate the repatriation of brilliant African scientists to the continent. WACCBIP received 21 applications for the CAN fellowship, from which six were shortlisted for interview and the two finalists were awarded the fellowships at the CAN Steering Committee meeting in London, together with six other finalists from the other African institutions. Each fellowship is worth £680,364 and includes funding for a PhD student and Research Assistant.

The highly competitive African Career Acceleration Fellowships are designed to support top-level African researchers through the transition to becoming independent researchers, helping them to establish research groups and careers on the African continent. The fellows will take part in a four-year training programme spending time at the Francis Crick Institute in the UK, and an African partner institution.