At the inaugural 2012 edition of the Science of Eradication: Malaria leadership course at Harvard Business School, Michael Chu, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration, led a discussion of private responses to public responsibility. Professor Chu based the discussion on the HBS case he co-authored on “Farmacias Similares,” the largest pharmacy chain in Latin America, selling low-cost medication and offering doctor consultations and laboratory services to demonstrate how deficiencies in the public sector can be exploited by the private sector. The “Farmacias Simi” business model illustrates an innovative (and controversial) private sector approach in which the demands of the market were met while achieving significant returns on investment.
In 2012, the President’s Innovation Fund for International Experiences (PIFIE) funded a new multidisciplinary undergraduate colloquium titled Defeating Malaria: From the Genes to the Globe. Using malaria as a lens, the colloquium offered students an opportunity to explore complex aspects of global health. Led by faculty with deep expertise in global health research and field-based work, this Spring 2013 colloquium brought 16 Harvard College undergraduates together to gain a practical understanding of how economic, political, cultural, biological, and historical factors have shaped malaria disease.
As part of the final colloquium session, students were asked to assess specific challenges of malaria control efforts in disease endemic countries, including whether or not an elimination strategy would be a feasible goal given cultural, economic and demographic factors, transmission rates, etc. Harvard College students (from left to right) Brandon Liu, Serena Hagerty, Bonnie Lei, and Ashley Bach presented an assessment of Panama’s malaria control and elimination strategy during the final session.
Using a framework of mutual learning and a robust teaching format that features a combination of lectures, discussions, debates, and case study-analyses, Science of Eradication: Malaria course participants and teaching faculty explore the scientific and technological underpinnings of malaria,as well as the historical, political social, and economic contexts in which control, elimination, and eradication efforts have unfolded.
Nominated by a global network of malaria experts, partners, and collaborators from academia and the business, public health, government, and biomedical research sectors, course participants are comprised of the future local, national and global leaders of malaria eradication.
The diverse range of professions represented in the course is indicative of the breadth of fields and sectors that need to work together to achieve malaria eradication.
Preparing and inspiring the next generation of scholars and leaders is an essential component to achieving a malaria free world. To address this challenge, Harvard University has established major educational and training activities focused on malaria.
Through education and leadership development, the Defeating Malaria initiative focuses on meeting key objectives, including:
The 2018 edition of the course, hosted at Harvard Business School, convened a diverse cohort of malaria experts from 27 countries worldwide, including Brazil, Cambodia, Mozambique, and Nigeria.
Three institutions with deep knowledge and expertise in malaria – the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Harvard University, and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) – joined together a decade ago to create a unique leadership training activity called the Science of Eradication: Malaria. From 2012-2022, this leadership course provided individuals with diverse backgrounds and broad experiences in malaria control and elimination with a multidisciplinary perspective on malaria disease eradication. In 2012, Harvard renamed the leadership course “Science of Defeating Malaria” to mark a transition to African academic partners.
To date, 748 individuals representing over 74 countries have participated in the leadership course. To find out more about the course, visit the Science of Defeating Malaria course website.
At this critical juncture in the fight against malaria, it is vital to build local public health research and programmatic infrastructure in areas most affected by the disease. The most important part of this infrastructure is human resource capacity––the scientists, health workers, and government officials who are capable of addressing and solving complex problems at the community level.
Developing public health leaders––particularly in the field of infectious diseases––is central to the mission of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Over the years, talented scientists in malaria-endemic countries have been selected to conduct scientifically relevant research, lead training activities, and contribute to expanding the Pan-African Genomics Network at Harvard. Many of these scientists are also Alumni of “Science of Eradication: Malaria,” a leadership development course established by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, Harvard University, and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (2012-2022). In 2023, Harvard University began transitioning the leadership course–renamed “Science of Defeating Malaria”–to Africa with partners at Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar (UCAD) and the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) primarily at the helm.
The program has supported the education of students who are specializing in infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with a special emphasis on students from resource-poor countries.
With widespread environmental changes and population migrations, malaria has re-emerged and persisted under conditions of poverty in different areas of Latin America. The knowledge base of the molecular and cellular biology of Plasmodium parasites has exploded in the last decade. Still the impact of this knowledge and related research advances to control malaria transmission and disease is limited.
As part of a joint effort with collaborators in Brazil, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health convened Malaria Control: From the Bench to the Field, a new course that explored key aspects of malaria research, including fundamental elements of Plasmodium invasion, homing/latency, and transmission, as well as field-based approaches and testing. Held at the Fiocruz research facility in Porto Velho, Brazil, course participants included graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from Harvard University (Medical School, School of Public Health, etc.) and from academic institutions in Brazil and Latin America.
At the start of the course, students participated in a two-day public workshop titled, “Multidisciplinary Malaria Research in the Era of Elimination,” led by internationally renowned scientists and teaching faculty who presented and discussed recent advances in areas of parasite biology, vector biology, entomology, immunology, pathogenesis, and epidemiology. The main focus of the workshop centered on how research findings provide new insights to solve questions related to drug resistance, vector control, clinical management, and control of parasite transmission.
Immediately following the workshop, students participated in a 4-day course that was composed of lectures, discussions, site visits, and laboratory work. Lectures covered aspects of clinical management of malaria patients, interventions to control malaria transmission (and their challenges), and malaria surveillance. Site visits facilitated the understanding of the diverse ecological settings, and associated challenges regarding access, surveillance, and control of the disease. Sites included a combination of research laboratories, a malaria reference center, hospitals, riverine communities, and construction sites with intense environmental transformation. Laboratory-based skills training provided students with hands-on experience of state-of-art technologies and approaches. The course and public workshop were sponsored by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, National Institute of Science and Technology for Vaccines, and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel.
Demographically, Porto Velho is the fastest growing big city in Brazil and currently has approximately 500,000 inhabitants. While malaria transmission in the city of Porto Velho is a rare event, the suburbs of the district became one of the major areas of Plasmodium transmission in Brazil. Course activities were located in the city of Porto Velho.
