The Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society and The Institute for Global Health hosted visitors from Mozambique in March as part of the Fogarty-funded Vanderbilt University-Mozambique Collaborative Research Ethics Education Program (Formação Colaborativa na Ética em Pesquisa, FoCEP). Eight participants from Mozambique’s National Bioethics Committee and four institutional research ethics committees (RECs) participated in a three-week practicum on research ethics and protocol review.
Participants attended didactic presentations, took part in discussion of cases and international policy, and drafted guidelines for future policy in Mozambique. In addition, they shadowed protocol analysts from Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s (VUMC) Institutional Review Board (IRB) and attended weekly meetings of the IRB’s biomedical science committees to observe the protocol review process and members’ deliberations regarding submitted protocols by VUMC researchers.
During the final week of the practicum, the group was joined by members of FoCEP’s Advisory Committee, including João Schwalbach, M.D., head of the National Bioethics Committee For Health, Mohsin Sidat, M.D., Ph.D. and Esperanca Sevene, M.D. from Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Eric Meslin, Ph.D. from Indiana University Center for Bioethics, and Sergio Litewka, M.D., M.P.H., from the University of Miami Bioethics Programs and CITI International Education Programs.
FoCEP is co-directed by Elizabeth Heitman, Ph.D., and Troy Moon, M.D., M.P.H. as part of the Fogarty International Center’s program on international research ethics education and curricular development. FoCEP’s goal is to foster global health researchers from Mozambique in the ethical review of human participant research and the responsible conduct of research (RCR). This program aims to strengthen the development and institutionalization of a system for ethical review of human research protocols in Mozambique’s biomedical research institutions and newly developed RECs.
Participants pictured left to right:
Eric Meslin, Ph.D., Indiana University Center for Bioethics
Sergio Chicumbe, M.D., National Institute of Health-Mozambique
João Schwalbach, M.D., National Committee for Bioethics in Health-Mozambique
Jahit Sacarlal, M.P.H., Ph.D., Eduardo Mondlane University
Maria Acácia Ernesto Lourenço, Ph.D., Provincial Hospital Quelimane-Zambézia
Camilo F. Cuna, Ph.D., Lúrio University
Esperanca Sevene, M.D., Eduardo Mondlane University
Troy Moon, M.D., M.P.H., Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health
Elizabeth Heitman, Ph.D. Vanderbilt Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society
Lázaro González Calvo, Ph.D., Friends in Global Health
Guida de Miranda Rui Januário, Lúrio University
Sonia Enosse Ph.D., National Institute of Health-Mozambique
Mohsin Sidat, M.D., Ph.D, Eduardo Mondlane University
Fatima Cuembelo, M.D., Eduardo Mondlane University
Sergio Litewka, M.D., M.P.H., University of Miami Bioethics Programs
Holly Cassell, M.P.H., Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health