London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

On 9 February, Peter Piot welcomed to the School representatives from the Embassy of Japan and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science.

The delegates included, from the Embassy of Japan, Envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary Hitoshi Noda, attending in place of the Ambassador, Mr Keiichi Hayashi, Economic Minister Mr Hiroshi Oka, and Mr Tomohiko Arai, First Secretary (Science and Technology). Attending from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science were Professor Kozo Hiramatsu, Director, and Mr Takeshi Sekiguchi, Deputy Director.

A number of staff with links to Japan were present, and the Director spoke of the existing strong links between the School and Japan, and the history behind the setting up of the scholarship programme, which followed on from Brian Greenwood winning the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize by the Japanese Foreign Ministry in 2006, in recognition of his research on the prevention of malaria, pneumonia and meningitis in African children. The award was used to set up the Africa London Nagasaki Scholarship, now in its second year.

From left to right: Mr Takeshi Sekiguchi, Professor Hazel Dockrell, Dr Chris Drakeley, Professor Brian Greenwood, Professor Peter Godfrey-Faussett, Professor Kozo Hiramtsu, Professor Peter Piot, Professor David Mabey, Minister Noda, Professor Geoffrey Targett, Professor Sharon Huttly, Dr Limangeni Mankhambo, Minister Oka, Mr Tomohiko Arai.In the scheme's first year, there were 486 applications, and 5 awards made. This year, the number rose to 857, of whom almost 300 were appropriately qualified.

During lunch in the Globe Room, Geoff Targett announced the recipients of the 2011 Africa London Nagasaki Scholarships. The successful applicants were announced as Bassirou Diarra of Mali and Preston Izulla of Kenya, both of whom will be based in Nagasaki, Dodji Ange Dossou of Benin and Nicholas Musunguzi of Uganda, who will be based at LSHTM, and Dorothy Sebikari of Uganda who will be studying at LSHTM via distance learning.

For further details of the Africa London Nagasaki Scholarships, go to http://www.alnscholarshipfund.org