UWI joins network to combat viral illnesses

Jamaica, through The University of the West Indies, (UWI) Mona, is now home to a Centre of Excellence in the Global Virus Network (GVN), a coalition of leading virologists spanning more than 29 countries across six continents. All the centres work to advance knowledge of how viruses operate and to develop drugs and vaccines to prevent illness and death.

Professor Robert Gallo, MD, GVN co-founder and scientific director, officially announced the addition of UWI, Mona as the home of newest Centre of Excellence at the launch hosted at the Kenneth Standard Lecture Theatre in the Faculty of Medical Sciences, The UWI, Mona, last week Tuesday.

In addition to now having 46 centres of excellence, the GVN has seven affiliates and currently has 51 viruses under study across 26 fields – from arbovirology to vaccinology. Within these Centres of Excellence, the world’s top virologists research the viruses that pose the greatest threat to public health and to human kind.

Consequently, this unique level of collaboration gives the GVN the ability to work on all classes of viruses, making this network the only one in the world to encompass such a vast range of viral threats.

A number of these viruses are known throughout the world – Chikungunya, HIV, hepatitis B, Ebola, Zika, dengue, influenza, HTLV-1, etc.

Because no single institution in the world has expertise in all viral areas, the GVN brings the best medical virologists together to leverage individual strengths and to focus global teams of scientists on key scientific problems.

Network power

“The strength of the centres lies in the power of our network. This new addition is particularly important as we strengthen GVN’s international reach,” said Professor Gallo, who is also director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a GVN Centre of Excellence.

“I have a long history of working with The UWI and look forward to collaborating again through GVN initiatives.

“We also look forward to working with colleagues in Jamaica through The UWI to explore new research projects such as those involving endemic viruses in the region, including HIV and HTLV, and to examine and implement best practices as we work together to enhance the global safety net against viral disease”, Gallo said.

Director of the GVN Centre of Excellence at UWI Mona, Dr Joshua Anzinger, said “Having a GVN Centre of Excellence in Jamaica means we are at the table with experts from all over the globe who are working to understanding viruses throughout in different regions and also to be able to respond to and study them.”

This, he said, really positions The UWI and, by extension, Jamaica, even the Caribbean, very well in terms of being able to study these viruses.

According to Anzinger, although we do have some level of infrastructure and we can study them to some degree, we, perhaps, might not have some degree of expertise for a particular virus.

There might be some kind of equipment that we don’t have, but collaborators abroad might have those. Being in this network gives us some degree of access.

UWI, Mona was inducted as a GVN Affiliate through collaborations with three GVN Centres of Excellence, including the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine; University at Buffalo, State University of New York; and Colorado State University.

Commenting on the importance of having this Centre of Excellence, John Lindo, professor of parasite epidemiology in the Faculty of Medical Sciences, said, “UWI Mona has Jamaica’s only virus laboratory with the capability of handling live viruses for medical diagnosis and scientific research.

“It also has a cadre of highly trained virologists and is the site of the National Influenza Centre. Using this unique capability in the country, UWI will collaborate with GVN, leveraging their expertise, to better respond to outbreaks of viruses, such as dengue, chikungunya, and Zika in Jamaica and better prepare for additional global threats, including influenza and Ebola,” he added.