The University of Liverpool’s Professor Catriona Waitt and Professor Khuzwayo Chidiwa Jere have been awarded prestigious National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Global Research Professorships.
Funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the NIHR Global Health Research Professorship scheme supports outstanding researchers to lead ambitious programmes of applied health research and build long-term research leadership and capacity within institutions in the regions where they work.
Professor Waitt will continue her important work on global mother and child health, and the new funding will enable the implementation of MILK-CENTRE: Maternal and Infant Lactation pharmacoKinetics: Centre of Excellence for lactatioN Therapeutics Research and Engagement.
MILK-CENTRE aims to meet the critical need for better understanding of which drugs are safe for mother and infant during breastfeeding by establishing of a centre of excellence for lactation pharmacology at the Infectious Diseases Institute in Uganda.
Catriona Waitt, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Global Health, said: “Breastfeeding mothers who require medication lack access to the evidence necessary to make truly informed choices for themselves and their infant. Lactation pharmacokinetic studies are few, and often have methodological limitations.”
“The complexity of the population makes the design, delivery and interpretation of lactation pharmacokinetic studies challenging. I plan to leverage my work in Uganda over the past decade to build a globally-relevant, internationally credible centre of excellence for lactation pharmacology.”
The centre will have capability to respond to changing epidemiology and global threats, provide capacity building and support for partners, foster increasing industry relationships and influence global policy. This multi-disciplinary project bridges strategic gaps and meets specific research priorities which have been established through community and stakeholder consultation. This new Professorship builds on Professor Waitt’s Wellcome Clinical Research Career Development Fellowships held since 2015.
Professor Khuzwayo Chidiwa Jere’s award will fund his work on characterising the aetiology and host immunity to diarrhoeal infections in Africa (CAHIDA).
In this Global Health Research Professorship, Professor Jere will lead research to understand the causes of diarrhoea in adults, identify immune markers (Correlates of Protection) for effective vaccination, and evaluate new and existing enteric vaccines. This work will include capacity building, policy advocacy, and community engagement to inform better treatments, reduce antimicrobial resistance, and accelerate vaccine development.
Professor Khuzwayo Chidiwa Jere said: “Diarrhoea caused by rotavirus and Shigella is responsible for over 200,000 child deaths annually, mostly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Limited diarrhoea diagnostics in LMICs lead to the overuse of antibiotics and rising antimicrobial resistance. Despite existing vaccines, rotavirus vaccines underperform in LMICs, and no Shigella vaccine is licensed. I hope that my work will help to inform better treatments, reduce antimicrobial resistance, and accelerate vaccine development.”