The African University of Science and Technology (AUST) said it has accessed about $2.2 million out of the $8 million approved by the World Bank for research-oriented programmes.
The fund was released to fund research projects under the Pan African Materials Institute (PAMI), as reward for its ongoing research work on cancer drugs using indigenous particles.
The PAMI is a centre under the university led by Dr. Omololu Akin-Ojo.
He told reporters that the World Bank in order to enhance a sustainable programme was committed to giving more monetary rewards for every laid out target that would be achieved.
He said the centre has trained about 330 PhD students and 400 short term participants to improve living standards in West and Central African countries.
“So far the amount of money we have received is about $2.2 million. These are rewards for our performance because the project is result based; once you achieve certain things they give you more money.
“We have spent about $1.6 million on the project so far and we focused on materials for health where we are looking at development of a drug that can aid in cancer detection and treatment,” he said.
Co-chair of the centre, Dr Shola Odusanya, said the workshop was aimed at getting people to do “handsome work that can easily be escalated into industrial experiences”.
He stressed that having run some trials on indigenous drugs, it was discovered that drugs were as effective as the ones deployed from the western part of the world.
“We chose cancer as our objective to understand better the disease which is particular to us in Africa. At the quantity that is similar to the ones used worldwide, it is as effective,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment