CERMEL

The Centre de Recherches Medicales de Lambaréné (CERMEL) has been an outstanding research center in Central Africa since 1992. CERMEL has contributed to significant milestones and achievements in Global Health. These include the generation of pivotal data leading to the approval of Artesunate + Amodiaquine and, Artesunate+Pyronaridine antimalarial combinations; RTS, S/AS01 malaria vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine as well as the Method of Lambaréné for malaria diagnosis and the Lambaréné Organ Dysfunction Score for the prognosis of severe diseases.

CERMEL has established a Demographic and Health Surveillance System (DHSS) in which the catchment area includes a radius of eighty kilometres in both northern and southern directions. Two (2) satellite research units in Sindara and Four Place have been created to expand and facilitate the recruitment of study participants. They are about thirty-five thousand inhabitants enrolled in the DHSS living in Lambaréné and surrounding villages.

The Biomedicine and Social sciences (BIOSS) research group is implementing the EChiLiBRiST project at CERMEL.BIOSS has expertise in designing, conducting, and reporting clinical trials and discovering and evaluating investigational medical products. In addition, BIOSS also design and validate bioassays and evaluate the purity, toxicity, and bioactivity of compounds. A group of social scientists is currently conducting several randomized, controlled social experiments to understand the role of health interventions in changing human behaviours. One of these studies has tested several types of sensitization (short-term delivery, repeated and long-term, and active participation in people activities) to legitimate scientific knowledge in the population living in Lambaréné.

BIOSS is a well-gender balance research group with seven female investigators, PhD and master students over six males; four women in charge of the site study coordination, project management, field coordination & community engagement, and internal quality over three men in charge of data management and data analysis.