Earlier this summer, University of Virginia doctoral students spent three weeks in Angola, collaborating with institutions and researchers to mitigate the spread of malaria.
In May, Kwesi Forson, a biology doctoral student, and Julia Zulawinska, a biomedical science doctoral student, traveled between Luanda and Lubango to train scientists and health professionals.
“We trained scientists to use molecular methods to do malaria surveillance and track whether antimalarial drug resistance is occurring in their patient population,” Zulawinska said. “We also led trainings on a method called ‘parasite speciation,’ which helps identify the different species of malaria parasites, some more deadly than others.”
Both researchers investigate how the disease emerges and how the malaria-causing parasite builds resistance to drugs. Both work in the lab of UVA biology professor Jennifer Güler, which focuses on malaria research.
Güler and her lab have developed several methods for studying malaria over the past decade, which the team shared during their trip.
“We work on the molecular biology, the basic science of how resistance is developing to drugs, and occasionally collaborate with international partners in different regions in Africa and Europe,” Forson said. “We are trying to see which types of resistance are present in different regions where we have international partners.”
Their travels were funded by a grant awarded to the lab by the UVA Arts & Sciences Seed and Planning Grants program, which supports faculty in fundamental research and obtaining pilot data.
UVA researchers lead hands-on workshops in Angola, training scientists and health professionals to identify malaria parasites and monitor antimalarial drug resistance. (Contributed photos; design by Meredith Michael Smith, University Communications)
The program is a collaboration between the UVA lab and Fátima Nogueira, a researcher and professor at the NOVA University of Lisbon in Portugal.
“(Nogueira) has a collaboration with a lab in Angola, and she brings a lot of graduate students from Angola (to Portugal) to learn their methods of malaria surveillance,” Zulawinska said. “We got a seed grant to collaborate with one of those graduate students, who spent six weeks with us before we went to Angola to visit her and conduct our workshops.”
Throughout their trip, Forson and Zulawinska partnered with local health institutions in each city. In Luanda, they worked with the National Institute for Health Research, led by Joana Morais. In Lubango, they collaborated with Hospital Central do Lubango, led by Lina Antunes, a professor at Agostinho Neto University. These partnerships connected the UVA team with scientists and health professionals on the front lines of malaria surveillance, research and patient care.
Forson said it is important to share the knowledge they develop with health professionals who treat patients. The UVA researchers also learned a lot along the way.
“The experience really changed how we think about being a scientist because, before the trip, we were just in our lab space trying to design, experiment and analyze data, disconnected from what is happening in the field,” he said. “We improved our skills in teaching, communication and collaboration, which is important as we will probably end up as professors or in some related field.”
They also gained scientific expertise by better understanding the clinical environment and daily realities of malaria, he said.
Working with infectious diseases that happen in other regions can make the work more abstract, Zulawinska said.
