Short description: How to focus and build skills that will enable you to inform your research that will have both local and international impact. Guests: Fredros Okumu Soundbite: Marco Mello Episode description: Leonardo da Vinci’s quote “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” sets the stage for this week's episode. In this week's episode we discuss, how in spite of advances in technology and Hi-TECH methodologies that require high capital investments, answers can be found in the simplest of solutions. By focusing on local problems and ways to alleviate issues most immediately affecting the people around us we can focus our efforts on better health for everyone and achieve much better longer and more impactful benefit to the communities we live in.
Takeaways from today's episode:
Resources:
Fredros’ TED talk on developing creative innovative solutions for malaria prevention in rural Tanzania :https://www.ted.com/talks/fredros_okumu_why_i_study_the_most_dangerous_animal_on_earth_mosquitoes
Bill Gates on supporting Fredros’ work: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/williamhgates_would-you-put-your-arm-in-a-cage-with-500-activity-6703376045862600704-WFq2
Ubuntu philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy
Redzone podcast interviewing Dr. Jeff Karp on “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B01FSkPgS2k
Guest information:
Dr. Fredros Okumu is Director of Science at Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania. He is a mosquito biologist and public health expert working on sustainable approaches for controlling vector-borne diseases. He is also passionate about improving ecosystems for young researchers in Africa. @Fredros_Inc (on twitter) blogs here [malariaworld.org], and has ~100 scientific publications archived here[scholar.google.co.uk] & here [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov].
Prof. Marco Mello is a Brazilian biologist with a PhD. in ecology, alumnus of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. He worked as an associate researcher at Ulm University, Germany, and currently works as an associate professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. His research focuses on ecological synthesis, mainly about species interactions. Connect with Marco on twitter: @marcoarmello and his website: https://marcomellolab.wordpress.com
Acknowledgements
Editing by Mariana Vaz, https://www.marianacpvaz.com/
Research: Alice Matimba
Producers: Alice Matimba (Senior Producer), Isabela Malta (Producer), Christine Boinett (Creator and Executive producer), Emmanuela Oppong (Producer)
Host: Alice Matimba
Media and Marketing: Catherine Holmes
Music: https://freesound.org/s/477388/
Sponsors:
Wellcome Genome Campus Advanced Courses and Scientific Conferences