> New partnerships to advance public health in India
New partnerships to advance public health in India
Contact:
Michael Stevenson, President, 778.782.4641; michael_stevenson@sfu.ca
Mario Pinto, V-P Research, 778.782.4152; bpinto@sfu.ca
John O’Neil, Dean, Faculty of Health Science, 778.782.5361; joneil@sfu.ca
Marianne Meadahl/Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3210
Michael Stevenson, President, 778.782.4641; michael_stevenson@sfu.ca
Mario Pinto, V-P Research, 778.782.4152; bpinto@sfu.ca
John O’Neil, Dean, Faculty of Health Science, 778.782.5361; joneil@sfu.ca
Marianne Meadahl/Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3210
November 28, 2007
Simon Fraser University will soon become the first Canadian university to sign an agreement that will help India produce research pioneers and professionals in public health.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is one of three agreements that SFU President Michael Stevenson will sign with Indian institutions during a trip to India with Premier Gordon Campbell and 60 B.C. post-secondary representatives Dec. 1-7.
The landmark MOU involving SFU is with the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), a publicly and privately funded organization that is developing seven Indian Institutes of Public Health (IIPHs). With $50 million from the Bill Gates Foundation, the PHFI is partnering with universities worldwide to train future faculty for the IIPHs.
SFU pioneers international health collaboration
As the first Canadian university to partner with India in the Future Faculty Program, SFU joins the ranks of several prestigious international partners that have signed similar MOUs. They include John Hopkins University, Emory University, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“It’s an opportunity for SFU to participate in an international partnership that will see our Master of Public Health students get practical training and our faculty develop collaborative research programs in India,” says Stevenson. He will sign the MOU between PHFI and SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) in Delhi on Dec. 4.
The mission will allow SFU to expand its own India Strategy, established in 2006, to include other institutions and community partners, says Mario Pinto, Vice-President, Research. “The planned programs range from biomedical sciences and population and public health to issues of social conscience, such as sustainable villages and HIV transmission patterns in sex workers,” he explains.
SFU and Premier visit Indian health project
The Premier’s Mission to India will promote investment opportunities in B.C. and highlight the significance of cultural, social and health-related links between India and B.C. and its growing Indo-Canadian population.
President Stevenson, Dr. Pinto, and Faculty of Health Sciences Dean John O’Neil, together with the Premier, will visit one of more than 100 sites for an HIV/AIDS prevention program in south India’s Karnataka state. O’Neil, formerly from the University of Manitoba, is a co-principal investigator on the project, a joint initiative between the university and India’s Karnataka Health Promotion Trust.
“The increasing devastation of HIV infection and AIDS in India, where up to four percent of the population’s four billion people is affected, has motivated the country to reach out for help,” says O’Neil.
“This disease is out of control when it hits five percent of the population. SFU is helping India prevent HIV and AIDS from reaching epidemic proportions.”
More agreements to improve India’s public health
• Stevenson will also participate in formalizing an agreement between SFU, the Indian Ministry of Science and Technology’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, to develop collaborations in the area of bioinformatics and infectious diseases, beginning with malaria and tuberculosis.
The DBT will match SFU funding of $100,000 per year on a project related to infectious diseases. Fiona Brinkman, an associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at SFU and Cenk Sahinalp, an associate professor in the School of Computing Science, hope to collaborate with researchers in India to improve the computational identification of anti-malarial and anti-tuberculosis drug targets, and further characterize the structure of selected drug targets.
•A third MOU involves the establishment of a village life improvement project - the product of a partnership between SFU and the Indo-Canadian Friendship Society of B.C., together with the Village Life Improvement Foundation in Chandigarh. The arrangement would provide SFU students with service learning, cooperative education and volunteer service opportunities, beginning with a two-year pilot project in Brahampur, focusing on the use of computers in learning, and health promotion and education.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is one of three agreements that SFU President Michael Stevenson will sign with Indian institutions during a trip to India with Premier Gordon Campbell and 60 B.C. post-secondary representatives Dec. 1-7.
The landmark MOU involving SFU is with the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), a publicly and privately funded organization that is developing seven Indian Institutes of Public Health (IIPHs). With $50 million from the Bill Gates Foundation, the PHFI is partnering with universities worldwide to train future faculty for the IIPHs.
SFU pioneers international health collaboration
As the first Canadian university to partner with India in the Future Faculty Program, SFU joins the ranks of several prestigious international partners that have signed similar MOUs. They include John Hopkins University, Emory University, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“It’s an opportunity for SFU to participate in an international partnership that will see our Master of Public Health students get practical training and our faculty develop collaborative research programs in India,” says Stevenson. He will sign the MOU between PHFI and SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) in Delhi on Dec. 4.
The mission will allow SFU to expand its own India Strategy, established in 2006, to include other institutions and community partners, says Mario Pinto, Vice-President, Research. “The planned programs range from biomedical sciences and population and public health to issues of social conscience, such as sustainable villages and HIV transmission patterns in sex workers,” he explains.
SFU and Premier visit Indian health project
The Premier’s Mission to India will promote investment opportunities in B.C. and highlight the significance of cultural, social and health-related links between India and B.C. and its growing Indo-Canadian population.
President Stevenson, Dr. Pinto, and Faculty of Health Sciences Dean John O’Neil, together with the Premier, will visit one of more than 100 sites for an HIV/AIDS prevention program in south India’s Karnataka state. O’Neil, formerly from the University of Manitoba, is a co-principal investigator on the project, a joint initiative between the university and India’s Karnataka Health Promotion Trust.
“The increasing devastation of HIV infection and AIDS in India, where up to four percent of the population’s four billion people is affected, has motivated the country to reach out for help,” says O’Neil.
“This disease is out of control when it hits five percent of the population. SFU is helping India prevent HIV and AIDS from reaching epidemic proportions.”
More agreements to improve India’s public health
• Stevenson will also participate in formalizing an agreement between SFU, the Indian Ministry of Science and Technology’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, to develop collaborations in the area of bioinformatics and infectious diseases, beginning with malaria and tuberculosis.
The DBT will match SFU funding of $100,000 per year on a project related to infectious diseases. Fiona Brinkman, an associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at SFU and Cenk Sahinalp, an associate professor in the School of Computing Science, hope to collaborate with researchers in India to improve the computational identification of anti-malarial and anti-tuberculosis drug targets, and further characterize the structure of selected drug targets.
•A third MOU involves the establishment of a village life improvement project - the product of a partnership between SFU and the Indo-Canadian Friendship Society of B.C., together with the Village Life Improvement Foundation in Chandigarh. The arrangement would provide SFU students with service learning, cooperative education and volunteer service opportunities, beginning with a two-year pilot project in Brahampur, focusing on the use of computers in learning, and health promotion and education.