University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako, Mali


University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako
University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako (USTTB) at the University of Bamako is based in Bamako, Mali. USTTB includes faculties of Medicine, Pharmacy and Basic Sciences, an Institute of Applied Science, and the research laboratories founded by the NIH/NIAID which focus on malaria, tuberculosis and retrovirology. In 2002, the NIH International Centers for Excellence in Research (ICER) program was established; today the Mali ICER at USTTB includes the Malaria Training and Research Center, the Entomology Unit of the Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry, the Centre de Recherche et de Formation sur le VIH et la tuberculose and the University Clinical Research Center. In 2005, NIAID expanded the ICER program to include retrovirology and TB research. An ongoing FIC training grant with Northwestern University seeks to build capacity in HIV/TB research capacity. USTTB has collaborated with Northwestern since 2008 as a major partner of the Northwestern AITRP to train Malian researchers in clinical research and ethics.


Site Director

Dr. Seydou DoumbiaDr. Seydou Doumbia, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Odontostomatology & Director of University Clinical Research Center (UCRC), University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako (USTTB).
sdoumbi@icermali.org

Professor Doumbia has experience that covers infectious disease, particularly malaria, neglected tropical infectious diseases, HIV, emerging infectious diseases and community-based interventions. His experience as PI or Co-Investigator of several National Institutes of Health intramural Division of Intramural Research and extramural funded grants including the International Center of Excellence in Malaria Research as Project Leader, the Tropical Medicine Research Center, as Program Director, and the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIAID, and the University of Sciences, Techniques, and Technology of Bamako (USTTB) University Clinical Research Center laid the groundwork for developing sustainable infectious disease research training and career development programs for scientists and health research professionals. In addition contributed to the creation of the African Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Master Training Program in Bioinformatics in collaboration with the NIAID’s Office of Cyber Infrastructure and Computational Biology, OCICB, and H3-Africa Bioinformatics Consortium.


Mentors

Dr. Djeneba Dabitao, Assistant Professor, USTTB
ddabitao@icermali.org

Dr. Dabitao is an Assistant Professor at USTTB, with expertise in immunology, microbiology, and molecular biology. She received clinical training in Pharmacy at the same university, followed by graduate training (MS and PhD) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) in Baltimore. Dr. Dabitao is currently the Principal Investigator of a research and training grant (K43 Emerging Global Leader Award) that is funded by the Fogarty International Center (FIC) and the Office of Women Health Research (OWHR) at NIH. From 2015 to date, she has mentored highly talented young researchers at USTTB and trained up to 5 biologists in acquiring sophisticated laboratory skills for a timely conduct of the research activities she oversees as the Chief of the ImmunoCore Laboratory at the University Clinical Research Center (UCRC) in Mali.

Dr. Bassirou Diarra, Assistant Professor, USTTB and Head of Tuberculosis and Viral Hemorrhagic BSL-3 Lab
bdiarra@icermali.org

Dr. Diarra has a broad background in molecular and clinical microbiology, with specific training and expertise on transmission dynamics and the immune response to tuberculosis infection, especially in individuals who are co-infected with HIV, and or with drug resistant tuberculosis. He performs TB diagnosis with sputum smear and culture (in a certified biosafety laboratory level-3) and strain identifications using classical and molecular tools. Both in 2014 with West Africa Ebola outbreak, and since March 2020 for COVID- 19, Dr. Diarra was focused on training on diagnostic capacity for the whole country of Mali. As the reference laboratory for SARS-CoV-2 in Mali, and under his leadership, his laboratory has tested more than 70,000 SARS-CoV-2 samples, and diagnosed more than 8,000 new RT-PCR positive patients. In 2020, he was selected as the best Young Francophone in Antimicrobial resistance research. This project will be complementary and next step to his ongoing efforts to assess the level of antimicrobial resistance to overcome the transmission of emerging and re-emerging diseases.

Dr. Seydou DoumbiaDr. Seydou Doumbia, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Odontostomatology & Director of University Clinical Research Center (UCRC), University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako (USTTB).
sdoumbi@icermali.org

Professor Doumbia has experience that covers infectious disease, particularly malaria, neglected tropical infectious diseases, HIV, emerging infectious diseases and community-based interventions. His experience as PI or Co-Investigator of several National Institutes of Health intramural Division of Intramural Research and extramural funded grants including the International Center of Excellence in Malaria Research as Project Leader, the Tropical Medicine Research Center, as Program Director, and the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIAID, and the University of Sciences, Techniques, and Technology of Bamako (USTTB) University Clinical Research Center laid the groundwork for developing sustainable infectious disease research training and career development programs for scientists and health research professionals. In addition contributed to the creation of the African Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Master Training Program in Bioinformatics in collaboration with the NIAID’s Office of Cyber Infrastructure and Computational Biology, OCICB, and H3-Africa Bioinformatics Consortium.

Dr. Amadou Kone, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology, USTTB
amadoukone@icermali.org

Dr. Kone is a molecular and cellular biologist, immunologist and Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako in Mali. At USTTB, he leads the Molecular Biology Unit of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)-funded University Clinical Research Center (UCRC). The unit is involved in molecular diagnosis of emerging and re-emerging infections, including the molecular diagnosis of all Ebola virus disease (EVD) cases in Mali during the 2014 EVD outbreak in West Africa and recently in the diagnosis of SARS-COV-2 during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Dr. Kone his involved in several NIH-funded projects including NIAID Division of Intramural Research (DIR) and Division of Clinical Research (DCR) projects, Fogarty International Center (FIC) extramural research training grants and an NIAID R01 on M. africanum.

Dr. Almoustapha Maiga, Research Associate Professor of Virology, Faculty of Pharmacy, USTTB
amaiga@icermali.org

Dr. Maiga is a researcher and has joined the faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Sciences Techniques and Technologies (USTTB; University of Bamako), where he is Director of the Virology Laboratories at UCRC/SEREFO and the Gabriel Touré Teaching Hospital in Bamako, Mali. At SEREFO, his responsibilities include leading the Molecular and Epidemiology HIV Drug Resistance Laboratory, which he started while working on his PhD. Dr. Maiga’s training includes a PharmD from the USTTB, two masters degrees in immunology from French universities, and a PhD in Virology from University Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris, the top medical school in France, where he studied in the lab of Professor Vincent Calvez. He received post graduate training in molecular virology at Northwestern University in the lab of Professor Steve Wolinsky, a position funded by Northwestern’s NIH/Fogarty International Center AIDS Training and Research Program (AITRP). Dr. Maiga has experience with the National AIDS Program in Mali, SOLTHIS, a French NGO which played a key role in HIV biological and clinical monitoring in Mali, and ESTHER, the French government international HIV/AIDS agency. He is currently the study virologist for two clinical trials in HIV- infected Malian children and adults receiving second line antiretroviral treatment.

Yeya di Sadio Sarro, Assistant Professor in Epidemiology, USTTB
sadio@icermali.org

Dr. Sarro is an associate senior scientist in UCRC-SEREFO laboratory and Associate Professor in Epidemiology at the faculty of medicine and Dentistry (FMOS). This program has a state of art immunology laboratory where they run assays exploring the immune system. Dr. Sarro has lead this Immunology core from 2003 to 2017 and has conducted complex tuberculosis immunological assays. Beside immunological skills, he has more than 10 years of experience in data management. Dr. Sarro is Site PI in an NIH R03 project which is currently evaluating a novel Tuberculosis and Non Tuberculosis Mycobacteria diagnosis tests. He is closely working with the National Tuberculosis program for evaluating all new strategy to improve routine TB diagnosis and patient monitoring. Dr. Sarro teaches Epidemiology of Tuberculosis with MPH students at the faculty of Medicine. Based on the lab experience during 2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, his UCRC lab did the tests for all the suspected cases for Mali and part of Guinea. Based on this successful experience, the Malian ministry of health has requested the UCRC lab for the lab part of COVID-19 riposte. Dr. Sarro is part of the team of the lab for COVID-19 Diagnosis.

Professor Mariam Sylla, Professor of Pediatrics, University Teaching Hospital of Gabriel Touré
drmamesylla@gmail.com

Professor Sylla is Professor of Pediatrics working in the Pediatric Unit of the Gabriel Touré University Teaching Hospital. She teaches pediatrics including symptoms and signs of diseases at the Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry at the University of Bamako (USTTB), where she has recently been appointed Vice Dean of the Medical School. In addition to her clinical practice, Prof. Sylla leads the “Centre d‟Excellence Pédiatrique pour la prise en charge du VIH/SIDA au Mali” which is the referral center for infected infants with HIV/AIDS in Mali. This center was created in 2010 and is supported by the Global Fund. She has an extensive background in the management of HIV and opportunistic infections including tuberculosis. Prof. Sylla is involved in the training of personnel from the national HIV program in techniques involving care for HIV-infected infants and children.

Dr. Yacouba Toloba, Head of TB and Respiratory Diseases Department,  University Teaching Hospital, Point G
toloba71@yahoo.fr

Dr. Toloba has significant experience managing tuberculosis patients in Mali. He is the Head of the Pneumology department at the University Teaching Hospital of Point G. His department with 52 beds for complicated respiratory diseases and 20 beds for MDR/XDR-TB patients is the highest level of reference in tuberculosis care in Mali. This allowed his team to work closely with the National TB program in planning and implementing all the aspects of TB management in the whole country including Diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Toloba’s department has a very long and sustainable collaboration with the University Clinical Research Center (UCRC) since 2003. This collaboration led to many publications and helped them to manage some very complicated TB case. Their collaboration with UCRC also includes diagnosis and follow-up of MDR/XDR-TB in Mali. Lately, this program helped to diagnose the first three cases of XDR-TB. Besides his work in hospital, Dr. Toloba is now leading all teaching aspects of pneumology at the Medical school. He is also leading the Malian society of pneumology which is responsible for all refresh training in pneumology of physicians.In addition, he is leading the largest COVID-19 center care in Mali at Point G Teaching Hospital.