State University of New York at Buffalo and the University of the West Indies Partnership: 2015

• Priority health research areas in Jamaica
• Increased faculty leadership and collaboration
• Increased research funding opportunities
• Integration of health care and technology business partners
• Includes undergraduate, graduate student and fellowship
• Emphasis on innovation and sustainable development
• Jamaica as hub for Caribbean health research activities

Gene Morse also directs the Translational Pharmacology Research Core in UB's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences. He has been actively involved in drug development research since the introduction of antiretrovirals for HIV in 1986, with more recent emphasis on HCV infection and antiviral drug development.

He is the principal Investigator for the NIH Fogarty International Center, HIV Research Training Program with the University of Zimbabwe, co-chair of the SUNY-University of the West Indies Faculty Task Force for Health Research Development and chair of the Buffalo Jamaica Innovation Enterprise Executive Committee. Morse is the hub steward for the Western New York Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Hub.

John Lindo also is a consultant parasitologist to the University Hospital of West Indies. Professor Lindo is co-chair of the SUNY-University of the West Indies Faculty Task Force for Health Research Development. His research has focused on the epidemiology of soil-transmitted helminths and emerging infectious diseases. This includes the epidemiology of strongyloides stercoralis infections and toxocariasis, the emergence of malaria and angiostrongylus cantonensis infections in Jamaica, epidemiology of free-living amoebae in Jamaica and opportunistic parasitic infections in persons living with HIV/AIDS.  

Professor of Medicine and Department Chair of Microbiology & Immunology, Dr. Endy has extensive experience in dengue hemorrhagic fever and emerging diseases. His laboratory is currently developing an animal model for dengue hemorrhagic fever using humanized SCID mice.

Dr. Timothy Endy, MD, was awarded a research grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for "Dengue Vaccine and Viral Evolution in Rural Thailand." With this funding, Dr. Endy will be part of an interdisciplinary university and military team of researchers in the US and Thailand that will conduct coordinated studies to determine the effect that vaccination with a candidate live-attenuated tetravalent vaccine will have on vaccine-related genetic changes on wild-type dengue virus and how these changes will determine risk for dengue hemorrhagic fever, a severe illness caused by the dengue virus that results in more than 20,000 deaths/year, virus transmission in the vaccinated and surrounding population, and its mosquito vector. The field testing of the first dengue vaccine efficacy study offers a unique opportunity to study the evolutionary consequences of this vaccine on wild-type dengue virus with findings that will have long-term impact on the design of future dengue vaccines.

• 2018: University of the West Indies, Mona; MSc Medical Microbiology
• 2012 – 2016: University of the West Indies Mona; BSc Microbiology (Major), Plant Sciences (Minor)

• 2010: Doctor of Medicine, Saint George’s University School of Medicine, Grenada, West Indies
• 2005: Bachelor of Science, Summa Cum Laude, Double Major in Biology and Chemistry; Concentration in Medicinal Chemistry, Saint Francis College, Brooklyn Heights, New York

• 2016: Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) UWI, Mona
• 2011: PhD Medical Microbiology UWI

• Ph.D. Candidate at the University of the West Indies, Mona