Mr Thitthiphone Olinh is a graduate Bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical Care from the University of Health Sciences in Laos. He co-founded Precious Plastic Vientiane, an initiative addressing plastic waste in Lao communities, promoting recycling and sustainable environmental practices. Additionally, Mr Thitthiphone conducted research on the knowledge and behavior of self-care among people who has Long COVID-19 in Vientiane Capital, further highlighting his commitment to advancing both health and environmental solutions in Laos. He joined the Medicine Quality Research group in April 2024 as a research assistant, based in Vientiane in the Lao-Oxford-Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust-Research Unit (LOMWRU).
Dr Eulambius Mlugu holds a PhD in Clinical Pharmacology from Karolinska Institute, Sweden. He works as a lecturer at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Dr. Mlugu is a WHO/TDR Fellow in Clinical Research Leadership, working with the MARC SE-Africa team collaborating with WWARN on mitigating antimalarial drug resistance in Southeast Africa.
His research interests include malaria, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and HIV.
Dr Stephanie van Wyk, a molecular biologist and bioinformatician, has made substantial contributions to public health initiatives through her work on Plasmodium, bacteria, viruses, and fungi, working on disease outbreaks such as malaria, COVID-19, and cholera. Her active involvement in pathogen surveillance has influenced disease mitigation in South Africa and across Africa. Currently a research fellow at the University of Cape Town, she contributes her expertise to the Collaborating Centre for Optimising Antimalarial Therapy (CCOAT) and the Mitigating Antimalarial Resistance Consortium for South and East Africa (MARC SEA) within the Department of Medicine, Division of Clinical Pharmacology. Her focus on malaria epidemiology and genetics is in unravelling the disease's complexities and its treatment.
At CCOAT and MARC SE Africa, Dr. van Wyk's work focuses on malaria epidemiology, mitigation, and genetics. She is deeply involved in science communication, advocating for a broader understanding of pathogen research and its implications for malaria mitigation. She is passionate about her work in data science, particularly in optimising and developing web-based technologies to enhance research and public health responses.
Dr. Noudy Sengxeu is a pharmacist with a skilled doctor specialising in Clinical Research, Technological Innovation, and Public Health. She holds a Ph.D. in public health from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Limoges. During her doctorate, she focused on determinants of access to essential antiepileptic drugs in Southeast Asia. Prior to that, she completed a Master's degree specialising in drug quality.
Noudy has research experience in conducting research in the field of public health in Asia and Affrica. Additionally, Noudy is skilled in epidemiology, statistics, project management, and quality assurance.
Furthermore, Noudy actively participated in the dissemination of research findings. She co-authored several research papers that were published in reputable scientific journals, contributing to the body of knowledge on medication quality in low-middle incomes countries.
Inthaphavanh Kitignavong is a medical doctor in Laos. She became a part of the Medicine Quality Research Group (MQRG) at LOMWRU in Vientiane, Laos, in 2020. Her role as a Research Assistant involves using the HealthMap curation tool to search and map reports of poor quality medicines. Before joining the MQRG, she worked in the field of reproductive health as a medical officer at Population Services International Laos (PSI Laos).
Ngan holds a Master of Pharmacy from University of Toulouse III, France under the Mekong Pharma program for pharmacists in Southeast Asia and also a research scientist in the field of medicine quality at Lao-Oxford-Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust Research Unit (LOMWRU).
In 2019, Ngan joined LOMWRU as a master's trainee in pharmacology. From 2020 to present, she worked as a research scientist of the Medicine Quality Research Group. Ngan analysed data on the quality of cardiovascular medicine and anti-retroviral medicine and publish two research articles in BMJ global health.
In addition, she also participates in supporting ABACUS II project in Vietnam, Gram2 project and curation Vietnamese articles in HealthMap: global infectious disease monitoring through automated classification and visualisation of Internet media reports.
Praphai joined the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN) Asia Regional Centre in 2019 as an External Quality Assurance Technologist and is based at Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, in Bangkok, Thailand.
She operates the existing IDDO-WWARN EQA Programme for Pharmacology and Molecular Markers, and manages the Malaria Drug Reference Material Programme.
Daniel Yilma is academician and a practicing Internal Medicine physician in Jimma University Medical Center (JUMC). He obtained his PhD in University of Copenhagen. He established clinical trial unit at JUMC and conducts infectious disease research mainly on HIV, Tuberculosis, COVID-19 and malaria . Daniel joined IDDO/WWARN as a WHO/TDR fellow and continued his research as a University of Cape Town (UCT) post-doctoral fellow within the Southern African Centre of IDDO based at the UCT Collaborating Centre for Optimising Antimalarial Therapy. He serves as member of malaria case management team at national level. He works with WWARN and other collaborators to find safe, effective and simplified malaria treatment and diagnostic tools.
Konnie Bellingham joined the Medicine Quality Research Group as a research pharmacist in 2019.
She is Lao by origin but migrated to New Zealand as a refugee as a child.
Konnie trained and worked as a hospital pharmacist in New Zealand for 18 years. Her areas of interests are paediatric medicines, infectious disease, medication safety and evidence-based medicines.
She is currently working towards a dual master degree in public health and health management through the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Thanawat Assawariyathipat is the Senior Microscopist based at the IDDO Asia Regional Centre. He joined the WorldWide Antimalarial Research Network (WWARN), now part of the IDDO platform, in September 2014. Based in Bangkok, Thailand, Thanawat works with setting up a malaria microscopy reference laboratory and with quality assurance activities. Thanawat has extensive experience in microscopy; he is a WHO-certified Malaria Microscopist Expert and he previously worked for three years as a Research Medical Technologist for the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (AFRIMS) in Thailand. Thanawat completed a BSc in Science at the Mahidol University in Thailand.