Today SANTHE is an established pan-African research and capacity building consortium...
Today SANTHE is an established pan-African research and capacity building consortium which is still led by a Consortium Steering Committee chaired by Ndung’u – who has since become the Director for Basic and Translational Science at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI). The network now consists of seven partner institutions based in eight African countries.
The network is further strengthened through the support of its various international collaborators and aims to actively grow its membership worldwide.
*K-RITH was a collaboration of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of KwaZulu-Natal based in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, which, after a merger with the Africa Health Centre in Mutubatuba, KwaZulu-Natal, in October 2016, became known as the Africa Health Research Institute (*AHRI).
FUNDERS
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
On the 1st of August 2021 SANTHE attracted a $5 million USD to create a new scientific programme to focus on vaccine research and development and novel approaches to HIV and TB prevention in Sub-Saharan Africa. The funds were bestowed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of its Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) initiative. The new programme was named the African Collaboration for Innovation in HIV/TB Prevention (ACP-HIV/TB).
ACP-HIV/TB is integrated within the greater SANTHE network with the express aim to:
- develop locally relevant, innovative, and internationally competitive research;
- facilitate the professional development of African scientists;
- and strengthen research ecosystems in the fields of HIV and TB prevention. The funding will support innovative research projects, trainee fellowships, leadership development programmes, community/public engagement and diversity/inclusion in science.
This unified approach will expand the pan-African network of research excellence in the areas of HIV and TB prevention, increasing the visibility of African scientists for new and continued strategic partnerships. It also will benefit from the infrastructure and expertise already developed within the SANTHE consortium over the years advancing African science and fighting HIV/AIDS and TB on the continent.
The rationale driving ACP-HIV/TB is to accelerate the reduction in HIV and TB incidence in high-burden regions and populations with the goal of achieving sustained epidemic control. To achieve this goal, SANTHE aims to widely deploy the current proven prevention and treatment strategies and focus on research that might identify novel biomedical more optimal interventions. The purpose of this grant is to identify and support a broader network of investigators driving innovation in laboratories in Africa, where the burden of HIV and TB is high, to prevent new infections. The studies performed through this new African collaboration will generate current and invaluable knowledge to inform vaccine development and other prevention strategies for two of Africa’s most predominant diseases, as well as further develop research capacity and leadership in Africa and globally.
Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard
Set up in 2013 as a result of generous $200,000 USD donation from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Mark and Lisa Schwartz Foundation through the Ragon Institute of MGH, Massachusetts (MIT) and Harvard, Connect Africa travel Scholarships were originally set up to provide financial support up to the value of $2,000 USD per applicant to facilitate key travel activities required for optimal scientific research career advancement for African-based junior scientists. Applicants had to be undergraduates, postgraduates, post-doctoral research fellows and early career research scientists based at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI), HIV Pathogenesis Programme (HPP), University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN); Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), or any other African research institution but seeking assistance to travel to AHRI, HPP, UKZN or CAPRISA.
In 2022 the funding was renewed and adapted to support travel opportunities that may impact on the career-advancement of junior scientists on the African continent and contribute to developing the next generation of scientific leaders. It is often difficult for group leaders in Africa, particularly those just launching their independent careers, to identify funding to support travel and associated costs. Now Masters, PhD, post-doctoral researchers and early career scientists can apply to SANTHE for awards ranging between $2,000 and $10,000, but must be working on HIV/TB/SARS-CoV-2 and/or associated morbidities and infections. There are two types of awards:
- Global: Any researcher linked to a **SANTHE site or **SANTHE-affiliated site can apply to attend conferences, key meetings or trainings anywhere in the World.
- Intra- Africa: Individuals based at any African institution can apply to travel to SANTHE sites or SANTHE-affiliated sites to attend conferences, key meetings, or training.
Larger awards will allow longer-term training in international laboratories, often crucial for skills development and career advancement. These scholarships will also be of great value in strengthening south-south collaborative partnerships and sharing of investments in different parts of Africa.
Gilead Sciences Inc.
On the 1st of April 2023, SANTHE gained an additional $2.1 million USD in funding from Gilead Sciences Inc. to support its SANTHE HIV cure Acceleration Research Programme (SHARP).
SHARP addresses key research and capacity gaps in HIV cure research within the African continent, supporting work based on three HIV cure thematic areas:
- Defining the cellular targets of HIV in acute adult and paediatric infection and the impact of early versus chronic phase ART on reservoir dynamics and evolution.
- Investigating the viral determinants of reservoir size and dynamics and identification of the viral characteristics that can be targeted for reservoir purging.
- Longitudinally defining the magnitude, function, and transcriptional profiles of CDS+ and natural killer (NK) cells associated with lower reservoir size, reduced viral reactivation potential or viability.
In addition, the programme also supports effective community and public engagement related to HIV cure research to ensure that this research and interventions are well understood, informed, and accepted by the communities where cure interventions are likely to have the greatest public health impact (due to the high prevalence and incidence of infection).
SHARP’s objectives are to:
- Conduct innovative research that addresses key scientific gaps related to HIV cure and support African scientific and community leadership in HIV cure research.
- Support and develop knowledge, research and leadership skills for doctoral and post-doctoral trainees within the SANTHE network and develop a group with comprehensive HIV cure related expertise.
- Embed community and public engagement through all our scientific research efforts.
- Ensure that knowledge generated through these efforts are shared widely and translated to inform cure interventions.
The ultimate goal for this programme is to produce a critical mass of African scientists and community activists who can lead and sustain HIV cure research efforts within the continent. THe vision is that building a cadre of scientific and community leaders well-versed in the challenges and opportunities for HIV cure research will eventually result in more Africa-led HIV cure research, innovation, and rapid translation of new knowledge into practice. This will accelerate the goal of HIV cure in Africa and globally.
Science for Africa Foundation
On the 1st of May 2023, Ndung’u, in collaboration with SANTHE’s eight partner site principal investigators, was awarded an additional $4.4 million by the programme’s original funders to build on the success of the first award. This grant, bestowed by Wellcome to the Science for Africa (SFA) Foundation based in Nairobi, Kenya, is again funded through the DELTAS Africa programme.
During its previous funding phase, SANTHE made considerable progress in its mission to build a ground-breaking, collaborative tuberculosis (TB) and HIV scientific research capacity building programme. Advantageously, the renewal of the grant has provided the opportunity for further development of the programme, primarily the addition of HIV, TB and HIV/ART-associated morbidities, as well as emerging diseases like SARS-CoV-2, to the research programme to optimise overall prevention and improve treatment outcomes. New African collaborating sites have also been added to increase the diversity of training opportunities, trainees, and scientific expertise and opportunities for multi-site research activities. Furthermore, the funding has allowed for the reinforcement of quality trainee supervision and training with an emphasis on leadership development; better infrastructure to encourage more collaborative, transnational, pan-African research, and further strengthening research management support across all sites, among other programmatic improvements.
Under the DELTAS Africa programme, SANTHE will strive for scientific excellence through collaborative and cross-disciplinary research, aiming to inform better HIV and TB prevention strategies, improve treatment outcomes and understanding of the scope of HIV/ART-associated co-morbidities, and how they can be prevented or treated. Research will fall under the following thematic areas:
- Development of more effective HIV prevention strategies.
- Reduction of TB transmission.
- Development of strategies to mitigate long-term complications of HIV and/or ART including non-communicable diseases.
- Interaction of HIV-TB with COVID-19 and other emerging pathogens.
