Severin Donald Kamdem Wins RSTMH Small Grant
Severin Donald Kamden recently won a grant from the prestigious Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, London, UK Small Grants programme 2019. To congratulate Severin we asked him about the grant, his plans and research and about his love of immunology in the interview below.
Position: PhD Fellow, ICGEB, Division of Immunology, UCT
Tell us about the grant and its benefits:
I was one of the awardees of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, London, UK Small Grants programmes 2019. The purpose of this grant is to enable early career researchers and global health professionals in the field of tropical medicine or global health to undertake clinical or scientific research or fieldwork, as stand-alone projects or distinct elements within larger projects.
This small grant will benefit me at different levels:
- First, this will help complete an important part initially not funded in my PhD. This part will focus on assessing the cytokines profile in plasma samples from a cohort of children with and without liver fibrosis in 5 villages of a Schistosomiasis highly endemic area in rural Cameroon. We do believe that identifying cytokines which contribute to either the drive/reverse of the fibrosis process is a bold step toward host directed therapy for a better management of Schistosomiasis-driven Liver fibrosis in particular and perhaps that of other fibroproliferative diseases in general.
- At a personal level this will allow me to be train on Luminex technology, which is in my opinion a good expertise to have as an Immunologist.
This is also a golden opportunity for me to attract further prestigious grants to strengthen my research capacity, build my CV, increase my independence and thus prepare myself for a competitive Post-Doctoral program. This a clear opportunity for capacity building.
Name of your research group: Immunobiology of Helminth infections (PI: Dr Justin Komguep Nono)
Tell us briefly about your research:
Human and preclinical studies have now convincingly shown that liver fibrosis occurs and progresses dissimilarly in Schistosomiasis diseased-individuals with the same egg burden, with similar biosocial determinants and subjected to similar environmental conditions. This suggests that parasite-independent and currently poorly-defined host intrinsic factors may play a defining role in the regulation of liver fibrosis. Therefore, my research work focusses on building an atlas of regulatory factors of liver fibrosis during hepatosplenic Schistosomiasis.
In addition to the RSTMH Small grant that I just secured, my PhD work is mainly supported by the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), EDCTP trough the grant TMA2016CDF-1571 and a recent FLAIR (Future Leaders – African Independent Research) fellowship from the UK Royal Society (FLR/R1/191058) awarded to my Supervisor Dr Justin Komguep Nono.
Why do you work in immunology?
I am working in immunology because I am keen to uncover how our organism fights against invading pathogens. It is quite amazing to see how pathogens have developed ways of bypassing the immune response so far. This make this field very exciting and my motivation is to be able to contribute through my work to health improvement and a better management of infectious diseases driven morbidity.
What would you would be if you weren’t an immunologist?
Definitely a Comedian :) Because am never too serious in what am doing, and this allow me not to be stressed and then I can work for hours without breaks, this becomes more like a game for me and I just enjoy playing then :)
What is the best advice or recommendations for young immunologists?
Do what you like, do what makes you happy. Don’t study Immunology because some people are doing it, but do it because you believe in it. Enjoy your work, be passionate, dedicated and your work won’t be mayhem for you, and you will enjoy working. When you reach that point, seeking new knowledge will become more like a game and you will then fully develop your capacity and be very productive.
I will then finish by saying that Immunology is a great field which needs dedicated young researchers.
Interview by Bonamy Holtak