News from the sites
Welcome to the monthly AI-REAL newsletter, in which we highlight the ongoing work from all the sites.
Oxford
We are delighted to announce that the SEREN social enterprise has been awarded the 2020 Vice-Chancellors Innovation award for team work by the University of Oxford. This prestigious award recognises the strong cross-border collaboration and outstanding teamwork demonstrated in setting up the project. Further details of the announcement can be found here.
Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences
Following completion of training of laboratory scientists on the Illumina iSeq100 next-generation sequencing system, the Haematology Clinical Research Laboratory in MUHAS is now ready to start sequencing samples. This has been an enlightening experience for the team, an important milestone for the project and a great achievement in terms of capacity building.
Community Engagement
In December 2020, we hosted the first ‘post-COVID’ Prevention and Awareness Campaign in Olmoti, Masai region. We welcomed more than 600 participants who were screened for lymphomas, along with prostate, breast and cervical cancers. Three suspected cases of lymphoma were identified, and the patients invited for follow-up screening.
St Marys Hospital
Muhimbili National Hospital
Recruitment update
Recruitment of patients to the trial is going well at all sites. As of 2nd November 2020, we have a total of 99 cases enrolled, which is 71% of our 140 patient phase-I target. All three sites have contributed to the total, with Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) leading the way with 61 patients recruited, followed by the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) with 21, and St Marys Hospital in Lacor with 17. Based on the current rate of recruitment we anticipate reaching our target in February 2020. Clinical information for all patients is being added to a secure database by the local teams. The AI-REAL team would like to express our thanks to the patients and their families for taking part in the trial.
Training
We are delighted to say that, following the delivery and installation of an Illumina iSeq100 sequencing platform at MUHAS, the technical laboratory staff have successfully completed their training, in anticipation of implementing the EBV sequencing panel. Well done team!
