MANAGEMENT
Director ’ s Foreword
Professor Sadequr Rahman
Director Tropical Medicine and Biology platform Food Security and Biodiversity cluster
The transformative energy of modern biology in shaping the biosphere is felt in all aspects of our lives , from applications in health to the appreciation of the complexity of ecosystems . The Tropical Medicine and Biology ( TMB ) platform is aimed at capturing and utilising this power in a holistic way to impact and improve the lives of people in our region , the tropics and across our world .
The TMB platform was set up in 2013 to better utilise the capabilities that were in the campus but fragmented across different schools . The capabilities were grouped into three different clusters that reflected the research foci : Genomics , Telemedicine and Infection and Immunity . The inaugural director was Professor Chris Austin .
It is now 2018 . Like life itself , the TMB has evolved in this time , becoming a more organic research effort , finding new activities and reducing other ones . The evolution of TMB has led to substantial reorganisation of the research effort focused on the UN Sustainability Goals 2030 . Thus , the research for the next three years will be centred around the theme of ‘ Healthy Living in a Healthy Environment ’.
The broad theme selected for our research has two main components pertaining to Healthy Living and Healthy Environment . The theme covers several UN sustainability goals related to good health and well-being , clean water and sanitation , sustainable cities and communities , life below water , life on land and quality education ( UN SDGs 2,3,6,11,14,15 ) and is also aligned to national goals . In addition , TMB will introduce two new work areas that cut across the work packages in the themes : IT for Biology and Medicine , and Economics of Biological and Medical Interventions . These readjustments to TMB should make it better placed for grant opportunities that arise , both locally and internationally .
To reiterate : progress along the Healthy Living and Healthy Environment axes is the focus of our three year plans . This is expanded further below .
Focus 1 . Healthy Living : Good health and well-being for all is one of the major UN sustainability goals and a national aspiration . As the population ages and the country and region become more developed , the disease spectrum changes . In Malaysia , the disease burden is similar to that associated with modern urban living in ageing Western societies with a prevalence of noncommunicable diseases . However , in communities such as Orang Asli and other poor , rural communities , infectious diseases , such as intestinal nematodes , affect a substantial number of individuals . In view of this , our research in this area can be divided into the following work packages , each supported by a group of researchers in a cluster .
Work Package 1 : Infectious Diseases : This work package is involved in studying the genetics and systems biology of selected bacterial , parasitic and viral infections that are prevalent in the local populations and have a substantial socio-economic cost . It has developing collaborations with
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