Livo Esemu, Graduate Assistant, Cameroon
To visit the Department of Tropical Medicine at the University of  Hawaii at Manoa, USA to learn bioinformatics and to analyze placenta samples collected from HIV infected and non-infected women using microarray and qPCR. Post-scholarship the use of bioinformatics as a tool to address HIV research questions pertinent to health problems in Cameroon will be continued by the scholar.

Alex Karabarinde, Survey Coordinator, Uganda
To visit Karonga DSS, Malawi to get experience of how research is conducted there and specifically how village informants are used in collecting census data. This scholarship is illustrating the importance in building capacity to continue HIV and other related research in the expanded general population cohort.

Abel Karera, Teaching Assistant/PhD Student, Zimbabwe
To attend both MRC, Uganda and University of Bristol, UK to undertake training in DXA, hand-grip dynamometry, study set-up and management within a low-income setting, advanced Stata and statistical regression methods, quantification of bone-age and cortical thickness on hand X-rays and benefit from valuable supervision with my UK-based PhD co-supervisor. This scholarship is intended to equip the recipient with the skills and expertise to plan, carry-out and analyse data and to pass these skills on through teaching to other researchers in Zimbabwe.

Edith Majonga, Teaching Assistant and Research Fellow, Zimbabwe
To undertake a placement at Great Ormond Street Hospital, Paediatric Inherited Cardiovascular Diseases Unit, UK for training in analysis and interpretation of specialized echocardiography techniques including: Doppler echocardiography (tissue Doppler imaging), speckle tracking, Strain and strain rate imaging. The scholar will be trained in statistical analysis too as part of the programme. The training will strengthen capacity in the scholar’s home department as well as in the teaching hospital for their university where they regularly perform echocardiography scans.

Kudakwashe Mhandire, Teaching Assistant, Zimbabwe
To visit the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, UK to learn human leukocyte antigen (HLA) and killer immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) typing techniques and analysis, while genotyping samples for Doctor of Philosophy studies. The scholarship will allow the recipient to carry out laboratory work for PhD studies while equipping them with skills that will benefit the individual, the University of Zimbabwe and the wider region. Findings from this study will help understand the contribution of immunogenetics to HIV pathogenesis and disease.

Phillis Mushati, Research Coordinator, Zimbabwe
To attend the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to attend a Masters Module on Social Epidemiology. The course will provide the scholar with the necessary skills to help them to understand the social determinants of “stigma in sex work”.

Stella Namukwaya, Social Science Research Team leader, Uganda
To attend the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK to undertake a taught course on the Sociological Approaches to Health.  The course will provide the scholar with a thorough grounding in the sociology of health and illness, including critical sociological perspectives on health and society and an understanding of the main conceptual and theoretical issues raised by research in this area.

Moses Nyongesa, Assistant Research Officer, Kenya
To visit Cape town University, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, South Africa to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and skills on diagnosing mental health problems among adolescents in the context of HIV and providing adequate support to those experiencing mental health problems through effective interventional strategies. The skills, knowledge and competence gained during the scholarship period will be directly used to address mental health problems in a large upcoming study focusing on outcomes among HIV exposed adolescents (both infected and uninfected). 

Christine Sekaggya-Wiltshire, Research Fellow, Uganda
To visit the University of  Cape Town, Department of Medicine, Division of  Pharmacology, South Africa to  acquire the knowledge and the skill to carry out complex modeling of pharmacokinetic data which has been collected over the past two years. The placement will also enable the scholar to gain exposure to large pharmacokinetic clinical trials in a more advanced African setting.

Rawlings Walshak-Datir, Program Officer, Laboratory Research, Nigeria
To visit Dr. Gupta’s Laboratory at University College London, UK to receive training on: full-length HIV-1 gag genotyping, construction of recombinant vectors, generation of virus stocks and drug susceptibility testing (via phenotyping) and ultra-deep sequencing (to detect minority variants) on Nigerian isolates.

Christopher Zaab-Yen Abana, Senior Research Assistant, Ghana
To travel to the Bloodborne Viruses Laboratory of the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, USA to undertake two months intensive training on HIV-2 viral load assay. To learn first-hand from the experts in the field, acquire knowledge and skills that will help establish the HIV-2 viral load assay in the HIV Genotyping Laboratory of the recipient’s home institution.