Workshop-based learning and networking: a scalable model for research capacity strengthening in low- and middle-income countries.

Science education and research have the potential to drive profound change in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through encouraging innovation, attracting industry, and creating job opportunities. However, in LMICs, research capacity is often limited, and acquisition of funding and access to state-of-the-art technologies is challenging. The Alliance for Global Health and Science (the Alliance) was founded as a partnership between the University of California, Berkeley (USA) and Makerere University (Uganda), with the goal of strengthening Makerere University's capacity for bioscience research. The flagship program of the Alliance partnership is the MU/UCB Biosciences Training Program, an in-country, hands-on workshop model that trains a large number of students from Makerere University in infectious disease and molecular biology research. This approach nucleates training of larger and more diverse groups of students, development of mentoring and bi-directional research partnerships, and support of the local economy. Here, we describe the project, its conception, implementation, challenges, and outcomes of bioscience research workshops. We aim to provide a blueprint for workshop implementation, and create a valuable resource for bioscience research capacity strengthening in LMICs.

Assessment of new hyaluronic acid assays and their impact on FibroMeter scores.

BACKGROUND: We compared three hyaluronic acid (HA) assays and analyzed the impact of their variations on FibroMeter scores. METHODS: In a test group of 165 patients, HA levels were assessed with the commonly used ELISA assay from Corgenix, a new ELISA assay from Teco and an immunoturbidimetry assay from Wako, this latter tested across three different instruments. Five different FibroMeter scores were calculated. RESULTS: Correlation across the three assays (r(s) between 0.969 and 0.995) was very good. Means of differences (d) were lower when the immunoturbidimetry assay was compared on different instruments: d between -3.4 and 2.0 µg/L. However, a higher value for HA measurement was observed with Corgenix assay, compared to the other two assays (Teco and Wako): d between 27.1 and 36.4 µg/L. The assessment also demonstrated that HA variations had very little impact on FibroMeter scores: 0.0117 for virus and 0.0416 for alcoholic fibrosis scores, and between 0.58 and 1.71 for the area of fibrosis (expressed in percentage). CONCLUSIONS: The two new assays found lower values of HA, as compared to the Corgenix assay. However, these differences had very little impact on FibroMeter scores and had no impact on clinical evaluation of liver fibrosis.