The University of Warwick in collaboration with KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme and partner institutes in East Africa are conducting an NIHR Global Health Research Group project on the Application of Genomics and Modelling to the Control of Virus Pathogens (GeMVi) in East Africa.

GeMVi is looking to recruit 20 high calibre East African Research Fellows to undertake short term public health oriented projects of relevance to the East African setting. The fellowships will present an excellent opportunity for the Fellows to enhance their skills and work with leading experts in the fields of pathogen sequencing, bioinformatics, predictive modelling and health economics.

Funds are available for Fellowships each averaging 4-5 months with a maximum duration of 9 months. There will be 3 rounds of recruitment, the first went out on 25th January and is for 5 awards (Deadline 15th February, 2019). Second and third call will occur later in this year and in 2020.

There are a range of pre-defined projects outlines that the Fellows could apply to undertake (see list of existing project outlines below). The projects outlined are not necessarily fixed to the countries stated and could be adapted to similar situations in East Africa. Alternatively, if the Fellow is aware of a specific problem the solution to which would have potential public health implications then there is the option to develop a proposal with GeMVi technical support.

The Fellowships may be undertaken at the Fellow’s home institution with short periods at one of the GeMVi Partner institutions or as a placement away from the home institution at a GeMVi Partner or collaborating institution.

Research fellows will be provided with a budget of between 10,000 to 20,000 GBP. The funding level will depend upon duration of project, placement (home or overseas), travel and laboratory, computing or bioinformatics requirements. We will work with the successful applicants to develop the final detail of the award.

Eligibility Criteria

To qualify for the fellowships applicants should:

1. Have a PhD in the biological sciences, mathematics, computing science or statistics, where the project they undertook had a significant component of computational biology or infectious disease modelling or a Master’s degree with strong track record in genomic, informatics, or disease transmission and intervention modelling research.

2. Hold a research position in an East African research organisation or university. If on contract-based funding, they should have at least 6 months remaining beyond the proposed end of the fellowship.

3. Be able to provide a letter of support and release from the Head of their contracting institution. The institution should also confirm continued salary support for the fellow during the course of the fellowship.

4. Hold a valid passport (or adequate travel ID) and be ready to travel at relatively short-notice (without this the applicant recognizes they will be based entirely in their home country.)

Existing Project Outlines

• Establishing Measles/Rubella genomic surveillance and sequencing capacity for Kenya and East-Africa
• Modelling the cost-effectiveness of different HPV vaccination strategies in Kenya
• Modelling the impact of influenza vaccination in Kenya
• Viral metagenomics of mosquitoes for outbreak surveillance and monitoring
• Exploring the merits of different rubella vaccination strategy options for Kenya
• Tracking HIV drug resistance mutations across Tanzania to inform National treatment guidelines
• Characterising the virus composition of outbreaks of non-malaria acute febrile illness (NM-AFI)
• Establishing rabies genomic sequencing capacity and reference repository for East Africa
• Modelling the spatio-temporal risk of measles outbreaks and options for their control in Kenya

New projects with public/policy relevance are welcome.

For more information and application procedure please visit our website at: http://kemri-wellcome.org/gemvi/

Applications are open till the 15th of February, 2019.