The Ellison Medical Foundation has pledged up to $2,817,182 for a four-year period to support in-country training in Kenya for epidemiology fellows and laboratory scientist fellows selected from the East African region. The fellows will be paired with mentors from the CDC and the U.S. Department of Defense laboratory programs in malaria, HIV, entomology, and select helminthes in an effort to build regional capacity to meet the challenge of emerging infectious diseases.

The Ellison Medical Foundation has pledged up to $1,000,000 over 5 years to help support the Fogarty-Ellison International Clinical Research Training Program for U.S. and Developing Country Students of the Health Sciences. The training program will provide early career opportunities for U.S. medical or nursing students, or other graduate students in the health professions, to participate in a one-year program of mentored clinical research in infectious disease in developing countries. The U.S. student and a student from the host country will be paired to provide peer support and a mutually collaborative learning experience. Training programs will be available in countries such as Botswana, Brazil, Haiti, India, Kenya, Mali, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, and Zambia. The first annual competition will begin in the fall of 2003 for training that will commence in July of 2004. Applications are due January 6, 2004.
For further information and an application, see:
http://www.aamc.org/overseasfellowship
For NIH News press release, see: http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/may2003/fic-20.htm

The Ellison Medical Foundation has pledged up to $153,000 to fund a three-year post-doctoral fellowship through the Life Sciences Research Foundation. The fellowship has been awarded to David M. Raskin, Ph.D. of Harvard Medical School. Dr. Raskin will be conducting research on Vibrio cholerae that will provide basic information about bacterial physiology, as well as identify novel drug targets and growth inhibitors.

The Ellison Medical Foundation has pledged up to $2,817,182 for a four-year period to support in-country training in Kenya for epidemiology fellows and laboratory scientist fellows selected from the East African region. The fellows will be paired with mentors from the CDC and the U.S. Department of Defense laboratory programs in malaria, HIV, entomology, and select helminthes in an effort to build regional capacity to meet the challenge of emerging infectious diseases.

The Ellison Medical Foundation awarded $32,000 to initiate a training program by funding the first Clinical Research & Evidence Based Research Workshop, to be held in Chennai, India in August 2003. Physicians, from within India and abroad who are engaged in clinical and epidemiological research, will hold annual workshops over a period of five years for a group of Indian medical students to provide instruction and mentoring in the fundamentals of clinical research. Each student will be asked to develop a clinical research protocol and will have the direct availability of mentors for this research.

The Ellison Medical Foundation has pledged up to $275,400 for a five-year period to provide funding for the Training Innovations in Parasitological Studies (TIPS) program at the University of Georgia. The multi-department program, developed and run by the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases and the center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities, will introduce undergraduate students to multidisciplinary approaches to global infectious diseases and will provide undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral research opportunities at well established collaborative research programs in developing countries. For further information, see

http://www.ctegd.uga.edu/postpage.cgi?str=fellowships and http://www.uga.edu/news/artman/publish/040113ellison.shtml.

The Ellison Medical Foundation has pledged up to $810,000 for a three-year period to the interdepartmental Center for Global Health at the University of Virginia in order to provide support for student and faculty research on health threats in impoverished countries. This support, matched by the University of Virginia, will promote the international exchange of expertise by bringing in scientists and clinicians from developing countries and providing research opportunities for students and faculty going abroad. The funding will also support the development of interdisciplinary courses and an annual symposium on international health. The foundation will consider an additional 2 years of support upon completion of the initial award. For further information, see this link at www.healthsystem.virginia.edu

The Ellison Medical Foundation has awarded $25,000 to help support a leadership and
management training workshop for African scientists who are directors or potential directors
of African research institutes conducting research on malaria. This program was developed
under the auspices of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria. This pilot workshop will be
held in Tanzania in the summer of 2002. Follow-up to the training is anticipated to include
sabbatical placement of the participants at developed research institutions in other parts of
Africa or elsewhere in the world for mentorship and/or development of scientific
collaborations to strengthen the malaria research capability in Africa.

The Ellison Medical Foundation has awarded $1,100,000 for the first year of a five-year
award pledged to Harvard University to train a cohort of scientists, including pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and advanced research /junior faculty trainees from both the United States and from disease endemic countries, in modern approaches to microbial pathogenesis with an emphasis on microbial evolution. In addition to training in basic science, there will be a focus on developing and applying new interventions, including vaccines and drugs. Depending upon career level, the scientists in the program will participate in training at Harvard University and/or a partner institution including the Centre for Health and Population Research in Bangladesh; Mahidol University, Faculty of Tropical Medicine in Thailand; National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases in India; and Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal. One of the ultimate goals of the training and research collaborations is to establish sustainable research programs at several major universities in disease-endemic countries.

The Ellison Medical Foundation has awarded $1,100,000 for the first year of a five-year award pledged to Harvard University to train a cohort of scientists, including pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and advanced research /junior faculty trainees from both the United States and from disease endemic countries, in modern approaches to microbial pathogenesis with an emphasis on microbial evolution. In addition to training in basic science, there will be a focus on developing and applying new interventions, including vaccines and drugs. Depending upon career level, the scientists in the program will participate in training at Harvard University and/or a partner institution including the Centre for Health and Population Research in Bangladesh; Mahidol University, Faculty of Tropical Medicine in Thailand; National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases in India; and Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal. One of the ultimate goals of the training and research collaborations is to establish sustainable research programs at several major universities in disease-endemic countries.

The Ellison Medical Foundation awarded $552,695 in 2002 to The National Research Council (NRC), National Academies of Sciences, to support the first year of a program for resident research associateships in molecular pathogenesis and global infectious disease coordinated by Judith K. Nyquist, Ph.D., of the NRC, in collaboration with the Naval Medical Research Center and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. The Ellison Medical Foundation-NRC Postdoctoral and Senior Fellowships Program is offering competitive awards for research to be conducted on the molecular pathogenesis of infectious diseases in residence at the Army and Navy overseas laboratories located in Lima, Peru; Cairo, Egypt; Jakarta, Indonesia; Nairobi, Kenya; and Bangkok, Thailand. The focus is to employ molecular technology to better understand the infection process and the factors that determine and control the outcome of infections. The aim is to allow
postdoctoral or senior scientists an opportunity to conduct such studies in disease-endemic regions. The ultimate goal of such research is to generate critical knowledge needed to develop prevention and treatment strategies for infectious disease. Duration of the fellowships is one year with potential for extension. The first call for applications appeared this summer with an August 15, 2002 deadline. Future deadlines will be posted on the NRC website at: http://www.national-academies.org/rap Questions about the future application process may be directed to the NRC at 202-334-2760.

The Ellison Medical Foundation awarded $15,000 to the University of Iowa for a Training Course on Molecular Techniques in Malaria coordinated through John E. Donelson, Ph.D., with Dr. Thomas Egwang at the Molecular Biotechnology Laboratories in Kampala as the course organizer. The training course is being held September 1-30, 2002 in Kampala, Uganda. Selected students from several African countries are being trained by scientists from 6 African countries in malaria genome research, bioinformatics, and functional genomics with the objective of stimulating interest and enthusiasm in the application of molecular biology techniques to malaria research. It is expected that course participants will subsequently train others in each of their respective countries in post-genome research techniques for developing new tools for malaria control, thereby expanding access to this important technology within endemic regions.