Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia
MRC Unit The Gambia (MRCG) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is a leading research centre in sub-Saharan Africa. Research is carried out by three major Research Themes (Disease Control & Elimination; Vaccines & Immunity; and Nutrition & Planetary Health) that benefit from the core‐supported strategic platforms and of the research services. Two Cross‐Cutting Programs, i.e. Maternal & Neonatal Health and West Africa, involve all Themes, often in synergy, and underpin the Unit’s commitment to carry out research to decrease the current high burden of maternal and neonatal mortality in sub‐Saharan Africa and the Unit’s vocation as a Regional Centre of Excellence for Research and Training. A third cross-cutting Program, Planetary Health, is currently being developed.
Dr. Farba Faye
Dr. Farba Faye received his MSc and PhD in malaria research. His research took place in the malaria research unit of a French Public Research Institute named IRD. He has worked in collaboration with scientists at Pasteur Institutes of Dakar, Senegal and Paris, France and Scientists at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal. In the framework of this collaboration, they made a lot of investigations on malaria and vaccine research and published many articles in International Journals and a book. At London School and Hygiene Tropical Medicine, he led research on HPV, malaria epidemiology in sub-Saharan Africa, the evaluation of Ebola and COVID-19 vaccines in Sierra Leone and Mpox.
His current role as the Head of Research Governance at the MRC in The Gambia, is to ensure the delivery of high-quality research. It is defined as the broad range of regulations, principles and standards of good practice that exist to achieve, and continuously improve, research quality across all aspects of healthcare worldwide.
Dr. Bubacarr Bah
Dr. Bubacarr Bah is the Head of Data Science at MRCG. Prior to this position he was a Senior Researcher (Research Chair) at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) South Africa. Before that he did postdocs in EPFL, Switzerland and UT Austin, Texas, USA. He is an applied and computational mathematician with a PhD in mathematics from the University of Edinburgh, UK. His research interest spans a wide spectrum of data science ranging from theoretical foundations of algorithms, scientific computing, and applications of data science and AI to ecology, renewable energy, and health. Since he joined the Unit, his data science applications are more focussed on health research, with a particular interest in federated approaches to data sharing and machine learning. He is the MRCG PI on the AFRICAI-RI project.