IVCC will shortly be moving to new offices within the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM). The Wolfson Building is a £7 million project which will also house the Centre for Maternal and Newborn Health, and the Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease.

IVCC staff and partners were present when the building weas opened by LSTM’s Patron, HRH The Princess Royal.

During the opening ceremony Her Royal Highness was treated to a short presentation about the work of the IVCC and the other groups housed in the Wolfson Building.  She then was introduced to IVCC staff and some of its partners and funders.

IVCC CEO, Nick Hamon said this was a significant development in the growth of IVCC. ‘This move to purpose built new offices is coming at a significant time when IVCC is at the point of entering the development phase of three new anti-malarial insecticides and beginning to seriously consider how to tackle outdoor biting insects. The move will improve our facilities and facilitate future growth,’ he said.

In the photograph Her Royal Highness is being presented to Egon Weinmuller of BASF and Sue Kinn of the Department of International Development (DfID).

The Chairman of IVCC’s Expert Scientific Advisory Committee (ESAC 1), Professor John Pickett,has been elected a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.  He was chosen in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

As well as fulfilling the role of Michael Elliott Distinguished Research Fellow and Scientific Leader of Chemical Ecology, at Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, John continues to lead research into Chemical Ecology and is still very much personally involved with day-to-day research activities in the UK and around the world. He has over 480 publications and patents.

John’s contributions to the field of chemical ecology have been acknowledged with the 1995 Rank Prize for Nutrition and Crop Husbandry, election to Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1996, International Society of Chemical Ecology Medal 2002, appointment to CBE for services to Biological Chemistry in 2004, and the Wolf Foundation Prize in Agriculture in 2008, among many other international measures of esteem.  He also presented, in 2008, the Royal Society’s premier lecture in the biological sciences, The Croonian Prize Lecture, the Cornell University Lecture in 2009 and the Keck Center Distinguished Seminar in 2013.  He was awarded the International Congress of Entomology Certificate of Distinction, presented at the XXIV International Congress of Entomology in Daegu, Korea in 2012.

In June 2014 he will take over as President-Elect of the Royal Entomological Society.

Keeping people healthy and creating prosperous communities is not only ethically sound, but also makes good business sense, said Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Chairman of the IVCC Board of Trustees, addressing nearly 500 company leaders and executives at the Third Global Forum for Business as an Agent of World Benefit.
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The UK has played a significant role globally in the fight against malaria, according to a new report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Malaria and Neglected tropical Diseases (APPMG).

Launching the report in the House of Commons, Former Secretary of State for International Development, the Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP, praised the UK for helping drive the remarkable progress in preventing malaria, which has halved child deaths from the disease since 2000. He went on, however, to stress the importance of maintaining support, investment and innovation in the struggle against malaria, noting that resurgence is a very real threat.

According to the report, ‘the recent dramatic improvements in malaria control give no cause for complacency: history has repeatedly shown that when efforts and funds to control malaria are relaxed, it comes roaring back. Reducing malaria control efforts at this point risks failing to capitalise on the strategic advantage we are developing – jeopardising millions of lives and billions of dollars’.

The report suggests that the  next five years will be particularly critical in malaria prevention as innovative approaches to developing new insecticides, drugs and vaccines show healthy pipelines of potential new products. ‘We are now at a tipping point in the fight against this disease: sustained investment will drive down the number of malaria cases and deaths still further’.

Insecticide resistance is highlighted as a growing threat especially as  ‘the corner stone of prevention is vector control’.

The economic return on malaria investment is also highlighted in the report, which suggests a net economic return on malaria investment of over $200 billion by 2035. ‘Healthier communities will be more economically productive, and educational outcomes will be enhanced.’

Download the full report by following the link on this page.

IVCC is pleased to welcome Lois Rossi to its team. Lois was formerly Director of the Registration Division in the Office of Pesticide Programs of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  She will work with IVCC and its partners to navigate an efficient and effective path through the regulatory process, getting novel life-saving vector control solutions to market as soon as possible.

In a career at the EPA spanning 37 years, Lois Rossi was responsible not only for the registration of all conventional pesticides but also for the re-evaluation of approximately 400 active ingredients. Since 2004, she served on the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR) and was a member of the US delegation to the OECD Working Group on Pesticides and the Registration Steering group. In 2003 she served on the staff of the Plant Health Section within the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Affairs, European Commission.

Lois has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Zoology from the University of New Hampshire and a Master of Science degree in Biostatistics and Epidemiology from Georgetown University.  She is a native of Rhode Island.

Welcoming Lois to IVCC, CEO Nick Hamon said, ‘We are delighted to have Lois join the IVCC team at a time when we are focused on selecting novel anti-malarial chemistries for full development. Her valuable experience and understanding of the importance of a robust, equitable and efficient registration system will be of great help in making innovative new public health tools available to those who need them most in the shortest possible time.’

Lois Rossi said ‘I am delighted to be working with IVCC and its partners, applying my knowledge and experience to providing chemical tools that can save lives and contribute towards making the vision of a world without malaria a reality’.

As well as working with IVCC, Lois will be pursuing a number of other projects that will enable her to put her wide experience in environmental protection to good use.