Crick Africa Network: A partnership to support biomedical research in Africa

We have partnered with the Crick Africa Network (CAN) in collaboration with the Francis Crick Institute and five African research institutions to empower African scientists to tackle health challenges.

5 researchers in white lab coats stand together smiling with their arms around each other's shoulders.

Overview

In collaboration with the Francis Crick Institute and five African research institutions, we have partnered with the Crick Africa Network (CAN), which we have funded with £7.5 million to extend the project for an additional five years.

CAN launched in 2017 to support young African biomedical researchers, allowing them to address unmet medical needs in their communities and develop their independent work into fully-fledged translational scientific programmes.

African partner institutions

CAN fellows will be hosted at one of five African partner institutions:

The West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), based at the University of Ghana
Stellenbosch University, in South Africa
The University of Cape Town, in South Africa
The Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
The Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Uganda Research Unit

Also available are the Crick’s world-class research laboratories and platforms, as well as our own state-of-the-art facilities in Stevenage and Edinburgh. Our Academic Engagement team is on hand to offer mentorship in a variety of areas, such as grant writing, publications, research ethics, translational science, and commercialisation.

Meet the CAN Fellows

Johannes (JP) Maree

JP will be working with Louise Walport and the Structural Biology Facility at the Crick and Hugh Patterton at Stellenbosch University to identify epigenetic treatments for African Trypanosomiasis or African sleeping sickness.

Ruan Gert Marais

Ruan will be working with Robert Wilkinson at the Crick and Adrian Brink at the University of Cape Town to contribute towards implementing metagenomics in the clinic in South Africa.

Munyaradzi Musvosvi

Munyaradzi will be working with Robert Wilkinson at the Crick and Thomas Scriba at the University of Cape Town to develop a tool to diagnose tuberculosis (TB).

Sheila Balinda

Sheila will be working with Kate Bishop at the Crick and Stephen Cose at the MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit to study latent HIV ‘viral reservoirs’ in understudied variants of HIV-1 prevalent in Uganda and East Africa.

Abdouramane Camara

Abdou will be working with Dinis Calado at the Crick and Gordon Awandare at WACCBIP to develop a new clinical test to evaluate the efficacy of vaccines at an early stage and predict long-term protection.

Leopold Djomkam Tientcheu

Leopold will be working with Max Gutierrez at the Crick and Jayne Sutherland at the MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM to study how people’s immune profiles affect their responses to tuberculosis (TB) treatments.

Jerry Joe Harrison

Jerry Joe Harrison will be working with Peter Cherepanov at the Crick and Gordon Awandare at WACCBIP to study the basic biology of HIV-2, a less well-understood variant of the virus, intending to develop inhibitor drugs specifically for HIV-2.

Tracey Jooste

Tracey Jooste will be working with Robert Wilkinson at the Crick and Gerhard Walzl at Stellenbosch University to develop tests that predict the success of TB treatment and the possibility of relapse.