The African Research Excellence Fund awards every year early-career researchers to enable them to pursue three to nine-month placements at a research institution of their choice.
These Fellowships provide African researchers with experience of state-of-the-art research methodologies in world-class research environments to help them build their research network, attend workshops and conferences, and learn from research leaders in their field.
We are very proud to announce that a member of our Network, Dr Anthony Sifuna, from Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST), in Kenya, is amongst the awardees of this year and he will conduct his research project at Imperial College London, supervised by Dr Jesus Manzano Rodriguez, also member and Principal Investigator of the Network.
Dr Sifuna is a a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Medical Biochemistry at MMUST and his research focuses on understanding the role of the environment in transmission and maintenance of waterborne pathogens and antimicrobial resistance. During his fellowship, Anthony will develop loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assays using the LACEWING platform for identifying Salmonella, Shigella, pathogenic Escherichia coli and Vibrio cholerae in water and environmental matrices.
The placement will help me to meet my long-term goal of improving surveillance and monitoring of waterborne bacterial pathogens in Africa – Dr Anthony Sifuna, MMUST
Visit AREF website to read about Dr Sifuna's Fellowship and the other awarded researchers: