Pilot Pharmacological Sciences Gateway (PSG) under the eI4Africa EU/F7 project Collen Masimirembwa African Institute of Biomedical Science & Technology 21 November 2016

The electronic infrastructure for Africa (eI4Africa) EU/F7 Project  An EU/FP7 project funded by the European Commission under the ‘Capacities Programme’ - Spanning 24 months (Nov Oct. 2014) AIMS  Boosting the Research, Technological Development and Innovation (RTDI) potential of African e-Infrastructures  Supporting Euro-African cooperation & policy dialogues  Enhancing Africa-EU cooperation  In the framework of the Joint Africa-EU Strategic Partnership (JAES):  ‘trade, regional integration and infrastructures’  ‘science, information society and space’

Elements of the E-Infrastructure for the science gateway  Liferay – software platform on which the gateways are established  Lifery portlets – interface applications that allow user to communicate with applications gateway  High performance computers (HPC)  User inputs a job through the gateway  The e-token saver allows user to access the virtual private network  Job transferred through the internet to the data engine and the job engine.  Job is the sent to a super computer that processes the job and produces out put & sends it back to the user

Science Gateway Access Workflow “A Science Gateway is a community ‐ developed set of tools, applications, and data that is integrated via a portal or a suite of applications, usually in a graphical user interface, that is further customized to meet the needs of a specific community.”

Demonstrator Science Gateways in Africa 21 November 2016 ProjectDescription Technology Transfer Alliance (TTA) promotes international collaboration on Research and Higher Education developing projects supporting problem- oriented project-driven learning. The demonstrator is a portal supporting the collaboration between members and external project owners Serengeti ICT R&D Portal Serengeti Broadband Network in northern Tanzania started as a research project and is developing into a living lab for rural development. The demonstrator is a portal for managing the network and services as well as for collection and analysis of data. Environment Monitoring via Sensor Networks (Internet of Things) This demonstrator illustrates collection of environment data from remote locations, sending it to a central repository and making it available in standard formats for research purposes, e.g. weather forecasting, climate change analysis, early warnings, Community Health Portal: The portal hosts several key applications supporting rural health workers, patients and the general public in rural Africa, including drug management, continuing education of health workers. real time transmission of health parameters from patient sensors, and remote consulting

Pharmacology Science Gateway  May 2013, AiBST & eI4Africa EU/F7 initiated collaboration to establish a pilot Pharmacology Science Gateway (PSG) on the e-platform  AiBST established consortium of 7 African countries to participate in the development of the PSG concept PSG InstituteContactsCountryExpertise 1African Institute of Biomedical Science and Technology (AiBST) Collen Masimirembwa Milcah Dhoro Roslyn Thelingwani ZimbabweGenetics DMPK Bionalysis 2Muhimbili University Omary Minzi Eliford Ngaimisi TanzaniaBioanalysis DMPK 3Makerere UniversityJackson Mukonzo Norah Mwebaza KSarah Nanzigu Muhammad Ntale UgandaBioanalysis DMPK 4Addis Ababa University, Eleni Aklillu Abiy Eyakem EthiopiaGenetics 5University of Nairobi, Anastasia Guantai Margaret Oluka KenyaPharmacy 6University of IbadanChinedum Peace BabalolaNigeriaPharmacy 7University of Cape Town, Collet Dandara Simbarashe Zvada South Africa Genetics DMPK 8Obafemi Awolow University Oluseye BolajiNIgeriaPharmacy

Aim To Design, Develop, Test, Implementand Evaluate a concept for cost-effective virtual e- infrastructure for African medical science collaboration (e-science) focusing on biomedical and pharmacological sciences and clinical trials for improving African healthcare

PSG Objectives  To make accessible tools for research and training in a manner that will ensure vibrancy in the N-S and S-S pharmacology research  To provide an e-platform which will remove/reduce physical barriers in research collaboration across Africa.  To promote South-South collaboration, thus harvest on knowledge & technology acquired over years of North-South collaboration  To build critical mass of pharmacology research leaders  To build research capacity through training and mentoring of post- docs and middle career scientists to become independent research leaders

PSG Concept Target: Post docs & mid-career pharmacologists Faculty/Mentors: Leading African & international preclinical and clinical pharmacologists Training/mentoring Programme: 1.Continued research activity post PhD work 2.Assess to & mentorship on the use & applications of research tools and material for the conduct of high quality research 3.Mentorship to competent and independent research leaders 4.Collaboration among postgraduates produced by various capacity building initiative in Africa 5.Assess to research grant calls and development of grantsmanship skills

Selected Areas of Initial focus 21 November 2016 Africa Grid Science Gateway ( Shared resources center Resources at the Gateway Genomics and Bioinformatics Bioanalysis, drug analysis and metabolism Clinical Trials Sciences Pharmacokinetics & Pharmacometrics Resources

Focus areas for the development of content for F2F and e-learning training for post-docs & mid career scientists TopicGeneral Description Pharmacokinetics & PharmacologyPreclinical and clinical pharmacology Bioanalytical ChemistryHPLC and LC-MSMS Pharmacogenetics/genomicsPhenotype & genotype and clin PGx Clinical Trials & BiostatisticsStudy design & implementation that ensures international acceptability of research results; addressing issues of clinical trials of herbal medicines & challenges of local variables/factors that can affect clinical trial results. Drug Discovery & DeliveryDrug formulations and stability issues

Implementation strategy  Engage African stakeholders at various levels  Individual: experts in each of the 5 selected areas  Organizational: Pharmacological societies  Institutional: Universities & research institutes  Engage International leading scientists in selected fields to provide expert mentorship and participation in content development & deployment  Establish a motivated African Leadership to develop an implementation model, project proposal and source for funding from relevant potential sources  Project to capture the shared interest of most organizations to strengthen Pharmacology research capacity and capability in Africa  Project to have high level by-in of African leading scientists in the selected fields, societies and institutions to enable the active participation of post-docs and mid-career scientists at these institutions  Training must be accredited by credible organizations and be recognized by universities and institutes in Africa as constituting continuing professional education.

Resources for implementation & sustainability  Expert teams for the development F2F and e-learning based content for the PSG  Resources for the organization of the F2F workshops for hands on learning exercises  Purchase of e-learning platforms such as Blackboard  ICT personnel to run and moderate the activities of the PSG  Access to open sources and commercial software relevant for the training and research in the chosen fields.  Access to secure, affordable, & reliable inter-institutional internet access network (e.g. Ubuntu Alliance)  Access to High Performance super computers 21 November 2016

Projected deliverables of this initiative  Framework for securing international funding and mentorship support in at postdoctoral and mid-career level for which no comprehensive model exists – increase in post-doc fellowships and start-up grants for emerging research leaders in science in Africa.  Framework for mentorship of middle career scientists by leading international & African experts in the selected field – development of competent research leaders in Africa  Continued research activity by post-docs and mid-career scientists in Africa – more high impact publications post PhD work and research grant awards for own research ideas.  Platform for collaborative research for scientists in Africa – increased co-authorship of papers by scientists from different institutes/universities

Planned activities  Reach out to individual, organizational and institutional stakeholder for critical input to the PSG concept document for endorsement & nomination of a project leadership team – August 2014  Identify theme specific African and international experts to work towards F2F content development workshops – conduct of one workshop by Nov/December 2014  Develop proposal for larger and long term funding to deliver on additional themes and various resources required for sustainability of the initiative – December 2014  Secure accreditation of courses by credible international organizations and acceptability by research institutes in Africa as indicators of career development of researchers – Jan 2015

Acknowledgements Consortium of African Scientists involved in the concept development for the demo version of the PSG eI4Africa EU/F7 team Lars Gustafsson Roberto Babera Collet Dandara