Weekly round-up #111

World TB Day 2020

Weekly round-up #111

Tuesday 24 March was World TB Day. VALIDATE joined those around the world highlighting the effects of tuberculosis worldwide and the urgent need for a TB vaccine, with a TB tweet on the hour every hour throughout the day, plus an interview with VALIDATE Director Prof Helen McShane about the challenges of developing a TB vaccine. Thank you to our members who liked and re-tweeted our posts, spreading the news of the importance of tackling this disease, which still kills 1.5 million people every year. Highlights from across the web are flagged for you in our Twitter section below.

 

This week has obviously seen huge changes across the world as COVID-19 has taken hold, and we hope that all our members are keeping safe and well. We would like to reassure you that the VALIDATE team are all still fully operational, with business continuing as usual - just from the safety of our homes rather than the office! So do continue to get in touch with our team as and when you need to; we're here to help.

 

Amidst the upheaval, we have had a great silver lining - we have welcomed a new member to the VALIDATE Management Team! Blakeley Nixon is our new VALIDATE Communications and Events Coordinator, and he will be working closely with our Network Manager, Sam, taking the lead on communications and events for the Network. Do contact Blakeley at Blakeley.Nixon@ndm.ox.ac.uk if you have any questions about, or ideas for improving, VALIDATE's comms and events.

 

This week we also announced our most recent round of VALIDATE Training Grant recipients - congratulations to the following members:

To find out about what our recipients will be up to, visit our training grant awards page.

Funding: 

Nothing new this week, but deadlines coming up are:

You can see all the other opportunities we've spotted on our funding opportunities page.

 

Training Opportunities:

Nothing new spotted this week. Many training opportunities have understandably been postponed or cancelled due to COVID-19; do keep an eye on our training opportunities page to keep up to date with the changes.

 

Events:

Due to COVID-19 many events have either been postponed or cancelled, visit our events page to stay up to date.

 

Job Opportunities: 

Take a look at our job webpage for further jobs are opportunities that are currently available.

 

Publications:

Our publications page is an easy way to find papers that may be of interest to you.

 

Highlights on Twitter this week: infographic with the current average disease deaths per day worldwide; find out more about bovine tuberculosis and its threat to public health; look at UCL-TB's online content for World TB Day 2020; in an interview for Understanding Animal Research, Mia Rozenbaum answers questions about the infection of Mycobacterium marinum in zebrafish; Prof Madhu Pai (McGill TB Director) discusses the need for a damage control plan for COVID-19 and TB; a guide for PhD students (but useful to all!) to being a scientist without a lab; WriteThatPhd advice on how to write a high-quality literature review and add value; journalist Vidya Krishnan flags that India under-reported TB for 15 years; a New Scientist primer on how vaccines work; a host your own webinar tool from the Infectious Disease Hub; step-by-step guidance on preparing your first paper for publication; BSI CEO, Doug Brown, highlights the role of vaccines in improving global health; find out how BCG may protect non-specifically against COVID-19; TB survivor Deepti Chavan shares her story; EDCTP highlights the MTBVAC-Newborns phase 2a trial in South Africa, aiming to better protect newborns from TB; BBC Radio 1 lists 5 ways to work well from home; and, for those interested, BSI can link up immunologists with lab expertise to assist with COVID-19 testing. @NetworkVALIDATE is a hub of information about VALIDATE, our members, and vaccine research for our focus pathogens - follow our feed to find out more.

 

Published: 25 March 2020