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November 2021 marks another grim flashpoint in a stream of them: the global COVID-19 death toll surpassed five million. The rapid development of vaccines has been an extraordinary achievement in the fight against COVID-19. However, successfully vaccinating the global population, especially in low-income countries, has been hampered by several challenges – notably vaccine inequity and weak health systems.
28 September 2021, Cape Town/Geneva – H3D-Foundation (H3D-F) and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) announced today a three-year partnership to strengthen capacity for health innovation in Africa. The two organizations will combine forces to focus on driving capacity strengthening for drug discovery and development in Africa by scaling existing initiatives and identifying new development opportunities for young and mid-career scientists in the region.
H3D and Ersilia OSI are excited to co-present a Drug Discovery Course by Dr Miquel Duran-Frigola entitled "Data driven drug discovery based on machine learning and large-scale bioactivity experiments". The event is this Friday 3 September, 12:00 – 13:00 SAST.
We will discuss, how machine learning techniques originally developed for text and image analysis, have the potential to revolutionize the drug discovery field.
Event details in attached flyer here.
Join the meeting here
This National Women’s Month, we sat down with Dr Lauren Arendse, one of H3D’s female trailblazers, to “Spill the T” on what it’s like to be a female leader in science.
“Being a small part of a bigger shared vision to train scientists and build drug discovery capabilities in Africa, and seeing the progress unfolding, is extremely rewarding and gives meaning to what I do.”
H3D Founder and Director, Prof Kelly Chibale, was recently listed as one of the 22 Black leaders in Biotech in honour of Juneteenth. The list, published by the Timmerman Report, celebrates innovative black leaders who are change-makers in their respective fields.
Professor Kelly Chibale has an easygoing manner and a big laugh that belies the fact that he’s one of Africa’s preeminent scientists, and among the world’s top Black leaders in biotech. Speaking over Zoom from Cape Town, South Africa, he’s quick to tease me that his home country, Zambia, is superior to mine, neighboring Zimbabwe. But Chibale’s start in life was anything but easy and is in fact perfectly captured by the name of the impoverished township he grew up in: Kabulanda, which literally translates as “sadness” in a local language.
H3D has a new collaboration with Yemaachi, a private research company based in Accra, Ghana, that is working towards lowering the economic burden of cancer on the African continent.
Image credit: africanhealthsciences.org
H3D is partnering with Ersilia Open Source Initiative (EOSI), a UK-based non-profit organization specializing in artificial intelligence (AI)/ machine learning (ML) for drug discovery.
Image: Yuichiro Chino/Getty Images
H3D is very excited to be part of the BRICS and international fight against COVID-19 with our successfully awarded proposal "Multidisciplinary platform based on artificial intelligence for accelerating drug discovery and repurposing for COVID-19".
It has been a harrowing few days. The smoky remnants of the Mostert Mill, the oldest working mill in South Africa and the charred Jagger Reading Room UCT library, a heritage building that housed special collections on African studies are constant reminders of what we have lost in the devasting fire that swept across Cape Town on Sunday morning (Daily Maverick)
Prof Kelly Chibale is passionate about improving the treatment outcomes of African patients. Read more about why and how his group is understanding drug metabolism in the African population.
Prof Kelly Chibale, founder and director of H3D, was recently interviewed by Chemistry World on his views on leadership, teamwork and his love for science. Read the full article here