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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

Aubrey
Cunnington

Gordon
Awandare

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

Jake Baum


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

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

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

Luc de Witte
Julie Balen

Tala de los Santos
Gonzalo Domingo

Linda Amoah
Francis Krampa
Jamal-Deen Abdulai
Alfred E. Yawson
Samuel Duodu

Abdelrahim Mohamed
Abubakr Omer
Elfatih Malik
Sahar Gamil
Muzamil Mahdi Abdel Hamid

Niven Mursi

Kevin Baker
Helen Hawkings
Prudence Hamade
James Tinderana
Jane Achan
Craig Bonnington
Chandi Muller

Shunmay Yeung
Amaya Bustinduy

Effua Usuf
Melisa Martinez Alvarez
Edgard Dabira
Jennifer Gardy
Scott Miller
Estee Torok
Himashu Nagpal

Julie Makani

Anthony Sifuna

Christine Manyando

Halidou Tinto

Joe Fitchett
Mark David
Salome Buchaki


Fahad Elnour

Dennis Laryea

Amadou Sall
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Mohamed Abumanga

Ibrahim Ahmed Bani

Darlington Akogo
Samori Issah Abubakari
Xavier Palmer

Marianne Comparet
Kamran Rafiq

Alison Webster
Andy Walker
Hema Sharma
Alison Webster
Lakshaman Ramamurthy

Richard Thanki
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