Willem Hanekom: Inaugural Lecture on Vaccines to prevent TB
Professor Willem Hanekom will give his inaugural lecture as Professor of Clinical Immunology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa later today. He will speak on vaccines to prevent tuberculosis. Hanekom is Co-Director of the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) and deputy Director of the Clinical Infectious Disease Research Initiative. Charles Mgone, Executive Director of EDCTP warmly congratulates Willem Hanekom: “On behalf of the Partnership I extend our sincere congratulations to Prof. Willem Hanekom for attaining this great achievement and wish him well in his new academic role. I am delighted that again one of EDCTP’s former Senior Fellows is established in a leadership position for providing African impetus in the fight against tuberculosis, especially in children.”
The Cape Town University profile highlights that Willem Hanekom’s research focuses “on testing of new TB vaccines in humans and on a better understanding of how we protect ourselves against the bacterium that causes TB. He has authored over 70 publications of research results in peer-reviewed journals. He has been successful in generating more than R75 million of research funding over the last 5 years, from the NIH, EDCTP and Gates Foundation, among others. He is actively involved in training postgraduate students, and has won various research and teaching awards”.
Hanekom, the profile continues, “is past president of the South African Immunological Society and current president of the Federation of African Immunological Societies. He is a regular reviewer for international funding agencies and for scientific journals. He serves on multiple World Health Organisation-affiliated and other international advisory committees in TB vaccine development and translational immunology. Willem Hanekom trained in medicine at the University of Stellenbosch, and in paediatrics at Red Cross Children’s Hospital. He then completed paediatric infectious diseases training at Northwestern University in Chicago, and a post doctorate in immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York City. He returned to South Africa in 2005 to lead the immunology effort of the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI). He is currently Co-Director of this group and Deputy Director of the Wellcome Trust-funded Clinical Infectious Disease Research Initiative”.
Hanekom received an EDCTP Senior Fellowship also serving as a re-entry grant in 2005 to study ‘BCG-induced immune correlates of protection against TB disease’ as a first step in further vaccine development. He is currently involved in the EDCTP funded-clinical trial led by Prof. Gregory Hussey (University of Cape Town) to evaluate the safety, immunogenicity and efficacy of AERAS 402/Crucell Ad35 TB vaccine in infants in four sites. The expected outcome is that the vaccine will be found to be safe, immunogenic and efficacious. The main objective of this project however is to ensure that the four distinct trial sites in sub-Saharan Africa, among which the site of the SATVI in Worcester (South Africa), possess the infrastructural capacity to conduct Phase IIB and Phase III trials of new TB vaccines in the next 5 years. The project runs from 2009 to 2014.
Further information:
- Information on the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative
- Information on the Clinical Infectious Disease Research Initiative
- Calendar of the University of Cape Town (South Africa): Inaugural lecture
About EDCTP
The European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) was created in 2003 as a European response to the global health crisis caused by the three main poverty-related diseases (PRDs) of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Currently EDCTP is a partnership between 14 European Union member states plus Norway and Switzerland with 47 sub-Saharan African countries. The aim of the programme is to accelerate the development of new or improved drugs, vaccines and microbicides against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis through promoting the integration of national programmes of EDCTP European Member States and development of a genuine partnership with African counterparts.
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Note to the editor:
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