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Who We Are

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The Network Management Team 

Imperial College London 
University of Ghana  
WACCBIP 
LSHTM | MRC Unit
The Gambia 
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Aubrey
Cunnington 
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Gordon
Awandare
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Umberto D'Alessandro

Professor Aubrey Cunnington is Head of the Section and Reader in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London and he is also Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at St Mary's Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHR Trust. Aubrey's research focuses on the interactions between hosts and pathogens which result in severe infectious diseases, particularly severe malaria and his research group uses a variety of approaches to study malaria, ranging from clinical studies and transcriptomics, to in vitro and in vivo models. 

Professor Gordon Awandare is Director of the West African Center for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP). His research focuses on the pathogenesis of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in children and on investigating the production of inflammatory mediators and the relationship between genetic variation in innate immune response genes and susceptibility to severe malaria in children. Gordon's research on the Plasmodium parasite is aimed at gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms used for invasion of red blood cells and a substantial aspect of the research efforts at WACCBIP is focused on characterizing the sialic acid-independent pathways of invasion and identifying novel receptors and ligands involved.

Professor Umberto D'Alessandro is Director of the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia (MRCG) at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and his research program on malaria is built around questions related to malaria elimination and eradication. He joined the MRC Unit The Gambia as clinical epidemiologist and carried out the evaluation of the Gambian National Program on insecticide-treated bed nets that showed the intervention decreased mortality among children by 25%. In 1996, he also joined the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium, where he developed a research program around three themes: antimalarial treatment, including drug resistance, malaria prevention, and the P. vivax in vitro cycle, implemented in several malaria endemic countries. 

Imperial College London 
Imperial College London 
Imperial College London 
Pantelis 
Georgiou
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Jake Baum
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Jesus Manzano
Rodriguez

Professor Jake Baum is a recognised leader internationally in malaria parasite cell biology, antimalarial drug discovery and interdisciplinary research. His lab - the Baum lab - has a diverse research portfolio including major programmes in malaria vaccine design and development funded by Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, drug screening programmes supported through Medicines for Malaria Venture and interdisciplinary work at the interface between engineering and parasitology, in particular development of novel point-of-care diagnostics for malaria. Professor Baum is also Co-Director of the Institute of Infection at Imperial College London.

Professor Pantelis Georgiou leads the Centre for Bio-Inspired Technology at Imperial College London, a multi-disciplinary group that invents, develops and demonstrates advanced micro-devices to meet global challenges in biomedical science and healthcare. 
Pantelis' research includes ultra-low power micro-electronics, bio-inspired circuits and systems, lab-on-a-chip technology and application of micro-electronic technology to create novel medical devices. 

Dr Jesus Rodriguez Manzano is non-clinical Lecturer in Antimicrobial Resistance and Infectious Diseases in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. Jesus holds BSc in Biological Sciences, a MSc in Advanced Microbiology and a PhD in Biotechnology and Environmental Microbiology and he has a strong interdisciplinary background in microbiology, molecular biology and bioengineering, and his research interest includes the development of point-of-care technologies and novel molecular methods for diagnosis of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, with particular interest in low- and middle-income countries.

Imperial College London 
Francesca Piffer
Project Manager
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Francesca holds a BSc in Intercultural and Multimedia Communication from University of Pavia and a MSc in Anthropology and Ethnology Science from University of Milano-Bicocca, where she focused on methodologies and methods of qualitative research. In 2015, she was awarded a Leonardo da Vinci Programme (EU) and she started to work as UX researcher and project co-ordinator in tech startups in Cambridge (UK), supporting teams of engineers and clinicians in the development and implementation of novel technologies, such as internet-delivered psychotherapy, clinical service provision platforms for the NHS, and clinical digital registries for complex data sets for neuroscience and neurosurgery. In 2017, she joined University of Cambridge as NIHR Programme Co-ordinator in the department of Clinical Neurosciences, working with innovators, patients, clinicians, SMEs and investors to foster digital technologies applied to brain injury, from pre-hospital and prevention to rehabilitation. In 2020, she joined the Digital Diagnostics for Africa Network as Project Manager at Imperial College London. 

Members of the Network 

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Azra Ghani
Lucy Okell
Kenny Malapartida Cardenas
Nicolas Moser
Ivana Pennisi                   
Jethro Herberg              
Talya Porat
Weston Baxter              
Ceire Costello                 
Mike Levin                    
Myrsini Kaforou       
Bonnie Webster                    
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Luc de Witte
Julie Balen
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Tala de los Santos
Gonzalo Domingo
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Linda Amoah
Francis Krampa                     
Jamal-Deen Abdulai
Alfred E. Yawson                    
Samuel Duodu
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Abdelrahim Mohamed
Abubakr Omer
Elfatih Malik                            
Sahar Gamil               
Muzamil Mahdi Abdel Hamid
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Niven Mursi 
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Kevin Baker                     
Helen Hawkings              
Prudence Hamade             
James Tinderana              
Jane Achan                     
Craig Bonnington              
Chandi Muller
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Shunmay Yeung
Amaya Bustinduy
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Effua Usuf 
Melisa Martinez Alvarez 
Edgard Dabira
Jennifer Gardy                  
Scott Miller                                 
Estee Torok                              
Himashu Nagpal                
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Julie Makani
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Anthony Sifuna
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Christine Manyando
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Halidou Tinto 
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Joe Fitchett
Mark David 
Salome Buchaki
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Fahad Elnour
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Dennis Laryea 
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Amadou Sall 
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Mohamed Abumanga
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Ibrahim Ahmed Bani 
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Darlington Akogo               
Samori Issah Abubakari                    
Xavier Palmer              
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Marianne Comparet
Kamran Rafiq
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Alison Webster                 
Andy Walker                     
Hema Sharma                
Alison Webster                
 Lakshaman Ramamurthy  
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Richard Thanki
© 2021 by Digital Diagnostics for Africa Network

Funded by UKRI Global Challenge Research Fund | Grant Ref: EP/T029005/1

Funded by Imperial College London EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account | Grant Ref: EP/R511547/1

© 2022 by NIHR Global Health Research Group on Digital Diagnostics for African Health Systems

Funded by the National Institute of Health and Social Care (NIHR134694) 

 

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