Dr. Liling Chaw, a lecturer from PAPRSBInstitute of Health Sciences attended a 2-week summer short course entitled “AnIntroduction to Infectious Disease Modellingand its Applications” from the 16th to the 29thof June 2019 at the London School of Hygieneand Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), London, UnitedKingdom. This intensive short course was jointlyorganised by LSHTM and Public HealthEngland, and has been running for 19consecutive years. The course provided abroad overview of the essential aspects ofmathematical modelling of infectiousdiseases, and covered both conceptual andpractical aspects on how to model with auser-friendly package. This was achievedthrough a series of back-to-back lectures andcomputer practicals, as well as sessions onpaper discussions, special seminars, andgroup work.  Dr. LiLing had positive experiences in terms oflearning essential skills for her research inBrunei and also in terms of interacting withthe teaching staff and course participants(who are academics, clinicians or publichealth professionals from 21 differentcountries).  Dr. Liling is a grant holder (UniversityResearch Grant (URG)) of a research projectwhich aims to investigate the epidemiology oftuberculosis in Brunei. She is very grateful forthe funding support from URG and ismotivated to apply the skills acquired todevelop a transmission model for tuberculosisin Brunei.I H S L E C T U R E RA T T E N D S I N F E C T I O U SD I S E A S E M O D E L L I N GC O U R S E A T L S H T M B E Y O N D | A P R . T O J U N . 2 0 1 9 | I S S U E 1 7Group photo of the course participants (Dr. LiLing Chaw; frontrow: third left) and teaching staff at London School of Hygeineand Tropical Medicine  5U B D P A R T I C I P A T E SI N A D V A N C E DN A T U R A LP R O D U C T ST E C H N O L O G I E SC O N F E R E N C E Dr. Mark I.R. Petalcorin was one of theinvited speakers in the 2nd USA–AcademiaSinica Bilateral Research Symposium andthe Iloilo International Conference onAdvanced Natural Products Technologies(I2CANProTech) from the 28th to the 30thof April 2019 in Iloilo City, Philippines. Histalk centered on “Using a model organismCaenorhabditis elegans as a drug discoverytool to screen for bioactivities of naturalproducts”.   This event showcased various scientificresearch and poster presentations relatingto natural products discovery for medicine,wellness and nutrition, and provided aplatform for networking opportunitiesthrough a variety of research interactions.It also celebrated the 70th year of Iloilo’sremarkable contribution to the fightagainst infectious diseases. The soilsamples collected from Iloilo in 1949 by Dr.Abelardo Aguilar contained actinomycetebacteria Streptomyces erythreus (laterclassified as Saccharopolysporaerythraea), which was the source for thefirst isolation of an antibiotic known asErythromycin and commercially launched in1952 as Ilosone.  Various international scientists andstudents attended the joint conferencethat was supported by the partnership withthe Office of Research and GlobalRelations USA, the University of SanAugustin in Philippines and AcademiaSinica in Taiwan.
< Page 4 | Page 6 >