When the call for seeding grants for double PhD projects was announced last autumn, Gabriela Godaly, researcher, and senior lecturer at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, took the opportunity to submit an application together with Reto Guler, associate professor, University of Cape Town. The application was approved, and the goal of the doctoral project is to find new treatments for TB.
- We are interested in finding new ways to treat TB. For example, we want to test whether bacteriophages can kill the TB bacterium,” says Godaly.
- It is a great advantage to be able to build a solid collaboration with a university in South Africa, a region that is hard hit by TB and where there is a lot of experience about the disease.
However, establishing a collaboration with the University of Cape Town South Africa was not obvious from the start.
- In the beginning, we tried to reach out to universities in Namibia and Zimbabwe without success. Only in South Africa did we find a University that was interested and had access to the equipment required to carry out the doctoral project, says Godaly.
An agreement with the University of Cape Town was drawn up and now, a few months later, Camilla Davids is on-site (after some administrative challenges, including entry permits) ready to embark on her new doctoral student life.
- Right now, I am taking my first steps as a doctoral student by optimizing methods and making contacts with collaborators. In the project, we want to examine whether we can modify the bacteriophages to make them more effective in Tuberculosis treatment. A technologist from LTH will be able to assist us with the genetic engineering aspect of the project, Davids explains.
One of the advantages of doing a doctorate in two countries is that you have a larger platform and more resources to conduct your research.
- When universities collaborate, there is a greater potential to deliver groundbreaking results. It enables the opportunity to spread knowledge about novel research and how Universities from different continents can work together to help combat illnesses that impacts millions worldwide, concludes Davids.
Learn more about the double PhD programme
Learn more about research on tuberculosis at the Faculty of Medicine.