UB’s CIGBS forges partnership in Zimbabwe for health care education, research and training

UB’s Center for Integrated Global Biomedical Sciences (CIGBS) has established a partnership with Intellectus Campus to expand research and health care education programs in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Intellectus Campus is a Pan-African-based provider of effective and affordable training solutions in health care, business, information technology, education, training and development. With more than 30 years of industry experience, it operates in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) with offices in South Africa, Namibia, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Botswana.

It’s also affiliated with Healthy Galaxy Park, a health care innovation and biomedical research hub that the government of Zimbabwe has established as a health economic development zone in Harare.

“I am very excited about the role for Intellectus Campus in implementing a core laboratory facility with bioanalytical instrumentation that will provide an innovative research environment and hands-on training for SADC,” says Gene Morse, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and director of CIGBS. “I look forward to working with CIGBS and Health Galaxy Park to bring an expanded biomedical research and development capacity to Zimbabwe.”

The mission of Health Galaxy Park is to foster innovation for Zimbabwe’s health care systems through a network of universities that form a meta-university within the country, explains Morse, who was recently appointed to the Health Galaxy Park board of management and designated as the global biomedical sciences partnerships liaison.

“The partnership with the UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences will help foster this emerging network,” he says.

CIGBS was established in 2015 with a mission of developing linkages with international collaborators to find new ways to bridge existing drug development and therapeutics research and capacity-building programs.

“CIGBS has been a longstanding partner in University of Zimbabwe research capacity-building efforts through collaborative National Institutes of Health grants from the Fogarty International Center,” Morse notes. “We have provided a program to mentor young faculty members and build their skills to conduct future research.”

The core research laboratory will be funded by the Intellectus Campus, with industry collaboration from companies that will join in the Health Galaxy Park project.

“CIGBS has been interested in participating in the Health Galaxy Park project as it represents a natural extension of two decades of biomedical research capacity-building with the faculty of medicine and health sciences at the University of Zimbabwe,” Morse says. “Zimbabwe universities are in need of a foundational infrastructure that can drive biomedical and economic initiatives leading to sustainable development. The collaborative nature of the project will foster new UB faculty participation and create new opportunities for graduate students to participate in global sustainable development research projects.”

Charles Maponga, a longtime academic and UB collaborator and co-principal investigator of the UB-University of Zimbabwe HIV Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Research Training Program, serves as CEO and chairman of the Health Galaxy Park board of management.

“Linking Intellectus Campus to CIGBS has been a milestone for the Health Galaxy Park initiative over the past year,” Maponga says.

Health Galaxy Park represents an environment where new biomedical and pharmaceutical research will be conducted by Zimbabwe faculty and students in collaboration with startup companies in an incubator-type setting similar to the START-UP NY projects that are established on many SUNY campuses, Morse explains.

CIGBS has been identified as the lead international university partner with the University of Zimbabwe in the development of Health Galaxy Park and was nominated in 2023 for the Prix Galien USA award for Incubators, Accelerators and Equity.