Outstanding contributions to TB & lung health honoured
Awards sponsored by The Union and its partners were presented throughout the week at the plenary sessions of the 46th Union World Conference in Cape Town.
The Karel Styblo Public Health Prize: Stephen M Graham (Australia)
The Karel Styblo Public Health Prize acknowledges a health worker (physician or lay person) or a community organisation for contributions to tuberculosis control over a period of 10 years or more.
Prof Stephen M Graham is Professor of International Child Health at the University of Melbourne (Australia) and has served as a senior consultant in child lung health for The Union since 2008. He is widely recognised as an expert in child TB and has been chair of the Stop TB Partnership’s Child TB Subgroup since 2011, as well as serving on several WHO taskforces. The author of numerous publications, he recently played a leadership role in the development of the Roadmap for Childhood TB: towards zero deaths (2013).
The Union Scientific Prize: Helen Cox (Australia)
The Union Scientific Prize acknowledges researchers at any stage of their career for work in lung health published in the past five years.
Dr Helen Cox is a senior researcher in the Department of Medical Microbiology at the University of Cape Town. As an epidemiologist specialising in tuberculosis, she has worked in TB and drug-resistant TB since 2001. She was instrumental in the establishment of one of the first drug-resistant TB treatment programmes in Central Asia and since 2008 has been involved in operational research in Khayelitsha, a Cape Town township with a high burden of drug-resistant TB. Dr Cox is a native of Australia who is now a permanent resident of South Africa.
The Union Young Investigator Prize: Jason Andrews (United States)
The Union Young Investigator Prize was established in 2011 to acknowledge a researcher for work in lung health published in the past five years, when age 35 year or younger.
Dr Jason Andrews is an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees at Yale University; trained at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Harvard; and is now an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. His research focuses on understanding TB transmission dynamics in high-burden settings, and current projects include examining drivers of tuberculosis in South African townships and Brazilian prisons.
The Union/Otsuka Young Innovator in TB Research Award: Gregory Fox (Australia)
The Young Innovator in TB Research Award recognises young scientists who have demonstrated a commitment to advancing innovative thinking in tuberculosis (TB) research. It is co-sponsored by Otsuka SA and The Union.
Dr Gregory Fox of the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research at the University of Sydney conducted a randomised controlled trial of household contact investigation for tuberculosis that was innovative in its use of randomised controlled trial methodology, purpose-designed electronic tools developed for the project that are scalable and demonstration of the feasibility of centrally coordinated contact tracing.
The Princess Chichibu Memorial TB Global Award: Robert Gie (South Africa)
The Princess Chichibu Memorial TB Global Award recognises outstanding contributions to global TB control. It is presented by the Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association (JATA), a constituent member of The Union.
Prof Robert Gie is Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health at Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. With his wife, Prof Nulda Beyers, he started the renowned Desmond Tutu TB Centre in 1990. Credited with putting childhood TB “on the map”, Prof Gie has played a key role in establishing WHO international health guidelines for the treatment of childhood TB and has both chaired and served on top-level international committees. He has also published widely and is credited with contributing to National Health guidelines on asthma. In 2014, he was given the title of Distinguished Professor by Stellenbosch University. Dr Shoji Kudoh, Chairman of the Board of Directors, presented the award on behalf of JATA.