Gov’t/Yale University support students

THE government, in partnership with the Yale University in the United States (US), has sponsored four Ghanaian students from the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) to study in Global Infectious Diseases Research at the university, as part of their educational agenda to reverse “brain drain”.
The partnership, which is a bi-directional exchange of students with four students of Yale studying at the NMIMR, is expected to create a model for improving health care in Ghana.
The Vice-President of the University of Wales, Ms Linda Koch Lorimer, who is attending the university’s conference in Ghana, told the Daily Graphic that by strengthening academic infrastructure and creating viable career opportunities for African and American scientists, progress could be made in reversing the brain drain in Ghana and in Africa as a whole.
She said the partnership, which was part of Yale University’s efforts at globalising its institutional structures, was an innovative programme that would harness the unparalleled expertise of the research faculty at the University of Ghana and Yale University by supporting collaborative initiatives in basic science, translational and clinical research.
The rationale behind the collaborative programme, she said, was also to inspire young scientists in Africa and in the US to pursue research careers by offering them valuable mentoring under established senior investigators at those world renowned institutions.
“The programme affords students at Yale the opportunity to work closely with the research faculty of the Noguchi Institute to conduct laboratory and field-based studies of major global infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, malaria, and intestinal parasites,” she stated, and noted that at the moment, graduate level students and research trainees from the University of Ghana were spending eight weeks in New Haven, working in a research faculty at Yale on laboratory-based projects designed to understand some global infectious diseases.
Additionally, she said the exchange of trainees and faculties would provide opportunities for US researchers to bring their expertise to bear on globally important problems that Ghana faced, and subsequently provide Ghanaians with the training that would enhance their capacity to develop independent research careers.
Mr Michael Capello, a Professor of Paediatrics & Microbial Pathogenesis at the Yale University School of Medicine, said the Yale had sponsored experienced executives in Ghana and across Africa in the Yale World Fellows Programme, where they had equal scholarship schemes with their counterparts in the US.
He said the programme, which was in its 7th year, was a four-month programme, with a specific curriculum on global issues aimed at building a global network of emerging leaders and to broaden their international understanding at Yale.
“Each year, the programme brings to Yale highly accomplished men and women from diverse sets of countries around the world,” he stated, and noted that the fellows were selected from a range of fields and disciplines, including government, business, religion, military, the media and the arts.
That, he noted, was to prepare the fellows for greater roles of leadership, expand their professional and personal horizons, and contribute to a deepening of international awareness and dialogue within the Yale community.