Africa: Test Case for Global Cancer Research
Africa: Test Case for Global Cancer Research
Hello. I am David Kerr. I am Professor of Cancer Medicine at University of Oxford and past President of ESMO (European Society for Medical Oncology). Today I would like to talk about a meeting that I hosted recently with Ted Trimble, who is Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Center for Global Health, about working with African colleagues to discuss transnational research collaborations in Africa.
It was a great meeting. It brought together the NCIs of the United States, Brazil, and France, as well as a fantastic cast of senior cancer researchers from Africa, led by Professor Isaac Adewole, who is Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan and President of AORTIC (African Organisation for Research and Training in Cancer). I was there as Co-Chairman of AfrOx (Africa Oxford Cancer Foundation), which is a small charity that the Right Honourable Alan Milburn (former UK Secretary of State for Health) and I set up to see what we can do to improve the quality of cancer care in Africa, something that I have talked about before and that I know you are interested in.
This was a very focused meeting. We talked about research. What became very clear from the outset was that it is impossible to disintegrate best practice, delivery of high-quality clinical care, and research at any level. Naysayers have said, "We cannot participate in research in Africa because there is not sufficient infrastructure." Our African brothers and sisters were saying the opposite: "As we build infrastructure, we need to build research capacity." That was important.
The second element that came up was the need for a map. Who is doing what, where, and how? There are many nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions, and some leading American centers that are all engaged, all of them showing that direct collaborative programs of research can be established, but nobody quite knows who is doing what. There were examples given in which our African colleagues sometimes play different institutions against each other. We need a better integrated matrix of what is going on, and that will deepen research opportunities and, perhaps most important, increase the sustainability of any research programs that have been undertaken.
It was a 2-day meeting that was held at BMA House, one of the historic landmarks of British medicine in the heart of London. It was a good place to have the meeting. What came out of it was a desire to build transnational research collaborations -- transnational because of the lack of relative infrastructure. We cannot build networks in single countries. We have to branch across different nations to make this happen. That was an interesting model. The need and desire for training and education came out again and again. We have a cohort of young cancer clinicians and pathologists who are hungry for training and education. This came out as being important.
There was an interesting discussion about the tension between African colleagues collaborating with international research vs national research that would be relevant and perhaps more directed to their own citizens. The two can sit comfortably beside each other. It may be possible to enter African patients in well-designed multinational studies looking at genetic epidemiology, new drugs, and others, so that there is a contribution to the global oncology community. We have some fantastically interesting examples of work going on in Africa, early screening ideas that were presented by Twalib Ngoma and Jim Holland, which one could imagine being rolled out in a similar way in wealthier nations in the west and north. There was an apparent tension, but it was resolved discursively at the meeting.
Of course, we discussed funding. We have nongovernmental organizations, industry, government, and academic institutions. Therefore, the notion about forming public-private partnerships seemed an attractive way to go ahead, and there were some interesting ideas about how to go about it.
One of the things that we are not so good at doing, because of our vested interest, is prioritizing research areas. There was a fascinating presentation by a leading health economist. I wonder if we could use a health economic approach to prioritize those areas of research, which would yield the most return most rapidly to the citizens of sub-Saharan Africa -- for example, using cheap and fairly effective means of detecting cancers at an earlier stage, because it is about detection, detection, detection. The majority of cancer patients in Africa still present with a massive disease burden, which means that it is difficult for us to manage. That could be an area defined by health economics, where one might start.
It was a great meeting. We will publish the results of this on the AfrOx and NCI Websites. Please look at the AfrOx Website. Those of you who feel that you might want to contribute at an individual level to the discussion that we have just had, and beyond that to helping to make a difference, look at the AfrOx Website, get in touch with us, and see what you can do to see if you may want to join us in this work. As always, thanks for listening.
Hello. I am David Kerr. I am Professor of Cancer Medicine at University of Oxford and past President of ESMO (European Society for Medical Oncology). Today I would like to talk about a meeting that I hosted recently with Ted Trimble, who is Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Center for Global Health, about working with African colleagues to discuss transnational research collaborations in Africa.
It was a great meeting. It brought together the NCIs of the United States, Brazil, and France, as well as a fantastic cast of senior cancer researchers from Africa, led by Professor Isaac Adewole, who is Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan and President of AORTIC (African Organisation for Research and Training in Cancer). I was there as Co-Chairman of AfrOx (Africa Oxford Cancer Foundation), which is a small charity that the Right Honourable Alan Milburn (former UK Secretary of State for Health) and I set up to see what we can do to improve the quality of cancer care in Africa, something that I have talked about before and that I know you are interested in.
This was a very focused meeting. We talked about research. What became very clear from the outset was that it is impossible to disintegrate best practice, delivery of high-quality clinical care, and research at any level. Naysayers have said, "We cannot participate in research in Africa because there is not sufficient infrastructure." Our African brothers and sisters were saying the opposite: "As we build infrastructure, we need to build research capacity." That was important.
The second element that came up was the need for a map. Who is doing what, where, and how? There are many nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions, and some leading American centers that are all engaged, all of them showing that direct collaborative programs of research can be established, but nobody quite knows who is doing what. There were examples given in which our African colleagues sometimes play different institutions against each other. We need a better integrated matrix of what is going on, and that will deepen research opportunities and, perhaps most important, increase the sustainability of any research programs that have been undertaken.
It was a 2-day meeting that was held at BMA House, one of the historic landmarks of British medicine in the heart of London. It was a good place to have the meeting. What came out of it was a desire to build transnational research collaborations -- transnational because of the lack of relative infrastructure. We cannot build networks in single countries. We have to branch across different nations to make this happen. That was an interesting model. The need and desire for training and education came out again and again. We have a cohort of young cancer clinicians and pathologists who are hungry for training and education. This came out as being important.
There was an interesting discussion about the tension between African colleagues collaborating with international research vs national research that would be relevant and perhaps more directed to their own citizens. The two can sit comfortably beside each other. It may be possible to enter African patients in well-designed multinational studies looking at genetic epidemiology, new drugs, and others, so that there is a contribution to the global oncology community. We have some fantastically interesting examples of work going on in Africa, early screening ideas that were presented by Twalib Ngoma and Jim Holland, which one could imagine being rolled out in a similar way in wealthier nations in the west and north. There was an apparent tension, but it was resolved discursively at the meeting.
Of course, we discussed funding. We have nongovernmental organizations, industry, government, and academic institutions. Therefore, the notion about forming public-private partnerships seemed an attractive way to go ahead, and there were some interesting ideas about how to go about it.
One of the things that we are not so good at doing, because of our vested interest, is prioritizing research areas. There was a fascinating presentation by a leading health economist. I wonder if we could use a health economic approach to prioritize those areas of research, which would yield the most return most rapidly to the citizens of sub-Saharan Africa -- for example, using cheap and fairly effective means of detecting cancers at an earlier stage, because it is about detection, detection, detection. The majority of cancer patients in Africa still present with a massive disease burden, which means that it is difficult for us to manage. That could be an area defined by health economics, where one might start.
It was a great meeting. We will publish the results of this on the AfrOx and NCI Websites. Please look at the AfrOx Website. Those of you who feel that you might want to contribute at an individual level to the discussion that we have just had, and beyond that to helping to make a difference, look at the AfrOx Website, get in touch with us, and see what you can do to see if you may want to join us in this work. As always, thanks for listening.
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