News and events - 2016

December 2016

Congratulations to Dr Filomena Perrone

Filomena was awarded her PhD for studying the regulation of a tetR-transcriptional regulator in Mycobacterium smegmatis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis at the Department of Environmental, Biological and Pharmaceutical Science and Technology, Università della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy and at BSMS.

November 2016

Pioneering study of potentially deadly hospital germ 

A new study by Prof Martin Llewelyn and Dr James Price has been published in Lancet Infectious Diseases this month. The study has been looking at patients who pick up Staphylococcus aureus, known as Staph aureus, in hospital to identify where it comes from. Staph aureus is a bacterium which lives harmlessly all over the body and which despite not causing problems for most, can cause serious infections among people in hospital. Hospital staff work hard to stop patients catching Staph aureus infections, particularly those caused by strains that have become resistant to commonly used antibiotics (such as methicillin resistant Staph aureus or MRSA). Despite these efforts hospital patients are still catching the infection. 

Using ‘whole-genome sequencing’ (WGS) the research team compared genetic codes from germs for similarities and to determine if one person picked up Staph aureus from another or not - one theory being that staff brought the bacteria into the hospital and spread it to patients. The results were surprising as it was not possible to identify where most patients picked up Staph aureus. This changes our understanding of how infections are spread in hospitals.  

This project is part of a wider collection of work being undertaken by Prof Martin Llewelyn’s and BSUH Consultant Dr John Paul’s research group in which WGS is revealing new insights into other medically important organisms including gonorrhoea.

TB research group receives significant Wellcome Trust funding to define early markers of treatment success

Dr Simon Waddell has been awarded over £99K from the Wellcome Trust to define early markers of treatment success for tuberculosis. The project will use the divergent responses of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria coughed out in sputum during the first few days of drug therapy to identify patients who might be able to stop the six-month long treatment early.

Dr Waddell enthused: "This is a new and exciting field of research that could significantly reduce the burden of lengthy drug therapy for many TB patients, and dramatically reduce the cost of tuberculosis clinical trials".

The research, at the Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research, is an international collaboration with The Royal Free Hospital University College London and The University of Buea, Cameroon.

October 2016

Global health scientists meet at BSMS to tackle antimicrobial resistance

In October, BSMS held the first meeting for the International Network to Tackle Antibiotic Resistance, which is a project funded by Sussex International Research Partnerships and Network fund. The project, coordinated by the Wellcome Trust Centre of Global Health, also involves The Centre of Global Health Policy at the University of Sussex, the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and the Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene at the University of Cologne. 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already warned that antibiotic resistance “threatens the achievements of modern medicine” and has developed a Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) with strategic objectives. The project seeks to strengthen AMR research that crosses biomedical and social science as well as geographic barriers. It will bring together researchers in genetics and microbial epidemiology, as well as scientists from the social areas, to develop common research questions, integrate research institutions from LMICs into the network, build capacities, and generate grant proposals for international funding. It will place a special focus on the effect of immigration on AMR epidemiology globally.

September 2016

Funding award for Ms Rehab Ahmed 

Congratulations to Rehab Ahmed in the Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology, University of Khartoum, Sudan for winning funds for a four-month research visit to WTBSCGHR to investigate the action of novel anti-tuberculosis compounds. 

August 2016

Project to Explore Scale of Podoconiosis Impact in Central America 

Prof Gail Davey and Dr Mei Trueba, from the Department of Global Health and Infection, signed a three-year collaborative contract in 2016 with the Universidad del Valle (Guatemala), following a successful research bid with the University of Sussex's International Research Partnerships and Network Fund. The project will explore the extent to which podoconiosis is a neglected public health problem in Central America and will support endemic country control through the establishment of sustainable regional collaborations and evidence-based interventions.

July 2016

Network to tackle global threat of antimicrobial resistance 

Prof Melanie Newport has been awarded a £30,000 grant to support an international research partnership, tackling the rising global threat of antimicrobial resistance. The award from the University of Sussex's International Research Partnerships and Network Fund will enable medical, biomedical and social scientists to share their expertise through an interdisciplinary network. 

The increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics is a significant challenge and by 2050 could be responsible for more deaths than cancer. The World Health Organization has warned that the severity of the problem "threatens the achievements of modern medicine."

The Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research, together with its partner institutions in African countries, will link up with scientists at the Centre for Global Health Policy (University of Sussex), the Institute of Global Health (University of Barcelona), and the Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene (University of Cologne). 

Researchers will develop a comprehensive strategy to investigate the drivers of antimicrobial resistance, ranging from bacterial genetics through to social factors such as migration and the globalisation of travel and trade.

June 2016

Santander Knowledge Transfer Grant 2016 

Daire Cantillon, a third-year PhD student supervised by Dr Simon Waddell, has been awarded the highly competitive Santander Knowledge Transfer Grant 2016. He will be visiting the Universidad Federale de Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil to learn how to isolate anti-bacterial compounds from Brazilian folk medicines and build research collaborations towards identifying novel compounds for the treatment of tuberculosis. 
 
Impact Award (Public Engagement) 

Prof Gail Davey and Prof Somnath Mukhopadhyay have been recognised at the University of Sussex's Impact and Research Awards 2016. The awards are presented to University of Sussex researchers whose work has had exceptional effects on the outside world. Prof Davey received the Impact Award (Public Engagement) for ‘Podoconiosis research: transforming patients’ lives’. Insert staff image here or delete this text

May 2016 

Ninth Scientific Meeting of the African Society of Human Genetics 

The Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research was well represented at the recent ninth Scientific Meeting of the African Society of Human Genetics. Prof Melanie Newport, Director of the Centre and President of the Society, chaired a session at the meeting, which was held in Dakar, Senegal. Three members of the Centre's collaborating centres also presented at the meeting.

Tewodros Gebresilase, a PhD student from the Armauer Hansen Research Institute, Ethiopia, won second prize for best oral presentation by a young investigator; he spoke about research that highlighted the importance of exploring community concerns around ethical issues when genetic research is undertaken in low-income settings. 

Jonas Arnaud Kengne Ouafo, a PhD Student at the University of Buea, Cameroon, presented a poster on his research on the genetics of podoconiosis; and Ashraf Osman Mohamed, a Research Assistant from the Institute of Endemic Diseases, University of Khartoum, gave an oral presentation on his research investigating the genetics of epilepsy in Sudan.

April 2016

International podoconiosis initiative awarded $100,000 

Footwork, the International Podoconiosis Initiative supported by the Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research, has been awarded $100,000 for the ‘Gondar Podoconiosis Prevention and Treatment Project’. The Izumi Foundation made the award following presentation of a proposal at their offices in Boston, USA, by Prof Gail Davey and Wendy Santis, Founder and Director of Footwork, respectively.

The project represents a two-year partnership between Footwork, International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC), and the Ethiopian National Podoconiosis Action Network. Treatment will be provided to 3,000 patients and prevention messages to 15,000 residents of the Gondar area in northern Ethiopia.

Prof Davey, Professor of Global Health Epidemiology said: “We are delighted to attract a new funder to support delivery of prevention and care to people with podoconiosis. The project struck chords with the philosophy and vision of the Izumi Foundation. We’re excited to see this new partnership developing."

March 2016

It is possible to predict how well tuberculosis (TB) responds to drug treatment, according to a new study at BSMS

Dr Simon Waddell, working with a team of researchers from the UK, South Africa and Finland, has discovered bacterial biomarkers that predict early treatment success. This may allow patients to finish drug therapy early, reducing the difficult and debilitating side effects of the drugs and cutting treatment costs. 

There were 9 million new cases and 1.5 million deaths from TB in 2013, and there are around 6,000 cases in the UK annually. The standard drug therapy is a combination of four drugs taken over six months. Side effects can be severe, and it can be difficult for patients to stay on treatment for the duration of therapy, leading to ineffective treatment and the emergence of drug-resistant TB. 

Dr Waddell and collaborators mapped the responses of TB bacteria during standard drug therapy to understand why some bacteria survive through months of drug treatment. The study showed for the first time that by testing patients’ sputum, specific changes could be identified in the TB bacteria two weeks after starting drug therapy that could predict the success of treatment six weeks later. 

“This exciting proof-of-principle study showed that bacterial responses could be used to understand drug action in patients, and that these signatures may be used as biomarkers allowing us to predict when patients may safely finish treatment,” says Dr Waddell.

“Profiling TB bacteria in this way may help find predictive markers of treatment success that are desperately needed in clinical trials and in the clinic. This would reduce the cost of drug trials needed to test new drugs for TB, and allow doctors to quickly stratify patients who are not responding to drug therapy.” The study ‘Profiling persistent tubercule bacilli from patient sputa during therapy predicts early drug efficacy’ was published in BMC Medicine in a special collection to mark World TB Day 2016.