DrModest Mulenga

I am the Director, Chief Executive Officer Senior Health Research of the Tropical Diseases Research Centre in, Ndola, Zambia. The Centre is the main national health research institution in Zambia which is mandated to conduct research in major diseases of public health importance. The institution has an authorized establishment of 200 staff including senior scientific staff, technical and support staff. I have held this position for seven years following my other appointments as deputy director and head of Clinical Sciences Department. I retain the position of Honorary Senior Lecturer of Biomedical sciences in the school of medicine of the Copperbelt University. In addition, I supervise PhD students in their research training work for various universities locally and internationally.

I also belong to a number of important national and international research advisory committees or boards, some of which I have been able to take leadership roles in various capacities. One of the roles as a member of the national health research advisory committee is to advice government of the republic of Zambia on matters concerning health research and disease control in Zambia. Other similar important international appointments and engagements are indicated below. At country level I am involved as a key person in the setting up of the national public health institute and played a key role in the setting up of the CBU-school of medicine. I am currently leading a team that has been designated as SADC malaria reference laboratory for surveillance and control of malaria in the borders areas of the member states. I head programmes for disease surveillance for the northern part of Zambia. I am a guest Author and reviewer for various Journals such as The Lancet Infectious Diseases. I still hold a sizable portfolio of research programme grants for disease control through research and surveillance.

My main research career achievement has been in the development of appropriate medicines for malaria treatment in Zambia. I was one of the lead persons that started the mapping of chloroquine resistance in Zambia and which led to the change in policy to save life from malaria. Zambia has recently added another effective drug for first line malaria treatment (β-dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine) as a result of a series of clinical trials sponsored by the EDCTP, which I led in conducting over the past ten years.

We have conducted studies with colleagues at Johns Hopkins University that have unveiled pockets of high malaria burden in Zambia despite extensive scale up of interventions. From this research we have thus proposed different approaches to malaria control including Mass Drug Administration in different parts of the country. Under this programme we are supervising a number of students conducting various research training activities in the country.