Powering Clinical Trials

To ensure high-quality clinical trials of a malaria vaccine, organizers in rural Africa must first upgrade electrical and research infrastructures.

Written byJef Akst

| 3 min read

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Dr. John Lusingu making the rounds of the pediatric ward at the Korogwe District Hospital, which shares its grounds with his clinical research center.JOHN MICHAEL, MAAS / DARBY COMMUNICATIONS

John Lusingu, a Tanzanian general practitioner, contracted malaria when he was 16 and battled the disease on and off for a decade. In 2000, after a 5-year stint at Mbeya Consultant Hospital in Tanzania, he decided to return to school to study the disease that changed his life and plagues millions of people in his home country and throughout the world. Though he left Africa to earn a PhD from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, his heart remained at home, and he decided to focus his graduate research on malaria morbidity and immunity in the Korogwe region of northeast Tanzania. But his research required a well-equipped hospital, and the region simply had no science infrastructure to speak of. “There was no building or laboratory ...

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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