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.

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.

Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight provided an elegant backdrop to the 2014 IVCC Stakeholder Day Dinner.

The Dinner traditionally precedes the annual IVCC Stakeholder Day, when colleagues and partners from across the globe gather together to share the latest information about development in vector control product development.

The IVCC Stakeholder Day is a unique networking opportunity for individuals and organisations involved in vector control product development, and the dinner provides the ideal environment for the networking to begin.

Presentations

During the Dinner two presentation were made as an acknowledgement of the service given over the past few years to IVCC and vector control product development.

Dr Janice Culpepper was commended for her help to IVCC over many years as the IVCC programme officer for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Presenting the award, IVCC CEO Nick Hamon said she was the perfect programme officer, always available to give advice when the going is tough. ‘Janice lead us through our application with the Foundation with absolute clarity. She was always the first to ask the tough questions that the rest of the Foundation are bound to ask later’, he said. He thanked Dr Culpepper especially for her help in expanding IVCC’s role in closing the gap between control/elimination and eradication.

Professor Mark Rowland was commended for his help to IVCC as Coordinator of PAMVERC, the Pan-African Vector Research Consortium, an alliance of research institutions, laboratories and field sites in East and West Africa. CEO Nick Hamon said Professor Rowland had proved invaluable in overseeing IVCC’s field trials  of vector control tools to overcome insecticide resistance, and in country laboratory work for IVCC. ‘Mark had the necessary vision that to carry out IVCC’s programme we needed quality trials sites in Africa’, he said. ‘We continue to have that discussion today as we move at least one site towards GLP or GLP-like certification’. He thanked Professor Roland for being a ‘strong champion of IVCC, the African Trial Sites, and Vector Control’.

Complete photograph gallery of the Stakeholder Dinner and the Stakeholder Day can be viewed here.

IVCC receives £12 million from the UK Department for International Development (DfID) to develop the next generation of public health vector control tools.

IVCC has been awarded £12 million over the next five years by the UK Department for International Development (DfID) to support the development of new insecticides to combat malaria.
This is part of the UK Government’s commitment to combating diseases that place an enormous burden on the world’s poor. £138 million will go to nine product development partnerships for the development of new tools to treat, control and ultimately eliminate some of the world’s deadliest diseases, including malaria.

International Development Secretary, Justine Greening, said, “The development of new technologies is vital if we are to improve the health of the poorest people through better treatment and prevention, and avoid the unnecessary deaths of children. Working together in product development partnerships, the public and private sectors have a chance to bring together their expertise for the benefit of millions of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”

The CEO of IVCC, Dr Nick Hamon commended DfID for its investment in saving lives amongst the poorest people. ‘This support from the UK government is vital to sustaining the enormous gains that have been made over the past 10 years in preventing malaria through effective vector control tools. Insecticide treated bednets and indoor residual spraying have proved to be very effective at reducing deaths and illness from malaria, but increasing resistance to existing insecticides puts these gains at risk.

With this support from DfID and other major partners such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IVCC will move to the next phase in our development of the first new public health insecticides in 30 years. This novel chemistry will play a major part in bringing to an end this entirely preventable deadly disease which kills hundreds of thousands of children annually, devastates families and keeps countries poor.’

Since it was formed in 2005 IVCC has worked with some of the world’s leading agrochemical companies to identify new active ingredients that will form the basis of totally new insecticides for malaria prevention, and ultimately help to bring about the eradication of the disease. Companies partnering with IVCC have recently introduced two new insecticide formulations that prolong the effective life of current interventions and are proving to be valuable additional tools for malaria prevention.