International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology,
Cape Town, South Africa,  September 4-10 2011

Course Organisers:
Dr. J Dorfman,  Prof. F. Brombacher, Prof. W. Hanekom.

This course focused primarily on some of the most serious worldwide public health problems.
Students were introduced to basic infectious disease research, with focus upon the basic and disease-specificimmunology and the basics of host-parasite interactions, the “big picture” of public health, which is critical todesigning research that is ultimately of benefit to the local public health setting.
This course was aimed at students and postdoctoral fellows performing basic scientific research related toinfectious diseases in health-related fields in low- and middle-income countries, particularly ICGEB memberstates and African countries.
The Course Topics were: Immune responses to pathogens and immune evasion; immunology, epidemiology and biology of HIV, hepatitis,malaria, leishmania, trypanosomes and tuberculosis; mouse models for immunity to parasites; public healthpriorities of developing countries.
In addition to the organizers, the teaching Faculty was composed of Prof Robert J Wilkinson, Dr. Gilles Van Cutsem, Dr. Francis MainaNdung’u, Dr. ShahidJameel, Prof Wolfgang Preiser, Dr. FabienneTacchini-Cottier,Dr. Stefan Magezand Dr. Mauro Giacca.
The participants were international. There are 17 students coming from outside South Africa: from Egypt, Sudan,Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, India, Denmark and France. There were also students residing insideSouth Africa; they included South Africans and also participants from Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria,Cameroon, Mauritius and Spain.

The candidates supported by IUIS to attend the course were:

AlphaxardManjuranoMusalika, Post-doctoral fellow,
Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, Joint Malaria Program, Moshi, Tanzania

Barbara Miheso, MSc student,
Institute of tropical medicine and Infectious diseases,Jomo Kenyatta University ofAgriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya

Bianca Verlinden, PhD student,
Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of Pretoria,
Pretoria, South Africa

DrissaKonate, MD working in research,
ICER /Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Odontosomatology, University of Bamako,Bamako, Mali

Fatima Abbas Khalid, Research Scientist,
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Health sciences, TB Research Centre, University ofKassala, Kassala, Sudan