Location
Tumaini University, Health Sciences Faculty, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College (KCMC), Moshi, Tanzania.

Dates
November 16 – 20th,  2009

Course Outline
We are funded by the Wellcone Trust, UK MRC and the British Council.

This 5 day course is designed to provide a stepwise introduction to the key skills of molecular biology, but placed in the context of research and diagnosis of infectious diseases.  The main strength of the course is that the practical classes emerge from the research activity of our group much of which is based in the East African environment, so attendees have first hand practical advice from bench scientists familiar with the constraints of work in Africa.

Following the success of the course in September 2008 we will modify the programme to reflect recent developments, feedback from our 2008 attendees and the needs of the 2009 attendees. In 2008 the course consisted of 4 practical classes covering, real time PCR, MLST typing, 16S speciation of bacteria and TB typing by RFLP. At the request of WHO FIND we included a demonstration practical on the Hain Assay for drug resistance in TB. Each day was started with seminars relevant to the themes of the course; these included:

• Impact of molecular biology on understanding viral replication dynamics in humans – Professor Vince Emery
• Culture free microbiology – Professor Stephen Gillespie
• Molecular Approaches to vaccine design – Dr Bambos Charalambous
• Understanding molecular epidemiology – Dr Tim McHugh

A key aspect of this course is an introduction to bioinformatics delivered through small group tutorials with 'hands on' experience of using bioinformatics techniques to investigate problems in medical microbiology, these sessions compliment the outputs from the practical sessions

Organisation
This course is hosted by Professor Noel Sam, KCMC and will be supported by academic staff from UCL Department of Infection.
Costs of travel to the course will be met for all attendees and a daily allowance will be paid to meet the cost of hotel accommodation and meals.

Applicants
This course would be open to scientists and clinicians from east Africa (including Zambia) in the first instance. Applications should be made by electronic submission. Click here to access the online application form.

It is essential that your application is supported with a statement from a senior member of your institution (see top of page). Entry is competitive and based on the application form.

Support for students on completion of the course

During the course each attendee will be assigned a Senior Tutor who will meet with the attendee and will be responsible for ensuring that the individual needs assessment presented in the application form is addressed. No Senior Tutor will have more than 3 tutees.
On completion of the course the Tutor will continue to act as mentor to the attendee, providing remote assistance for introductions to specialists and with troubleshooting.