ABOUT US
The Project
GLACIER (German Latin-American Center for Infection and Epidemiology Research) is an international project funded by the German Federal Foreign Office through the DAAD-programme Global Centres for Health and Pandemic Prevention. It aims to level regional disparities in Latin America by strengthening surveillance and response to emerging infectious diseases and developing new vaccines and therapies.
The Network
The project forms a multidisciplinary consortium made up of 9 countries and more than 30 institutions. It connects educational and research institutions, the private sector, foundations, and ministries from Germany, Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, and Guatemala with a wide range of political and health care systems.
GLACIER operates under the joint leadership of the Charité Institute for Virology – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, specializing in pandemiology, and the Institute for Medical Immunology of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in association with the Leibniz Institute for Plant Biochemistry (IPB), specialized in immunology and bioactive compounds. The core partner institutions in Central America are the leading universities in the region; the University of Havana (UH) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), each of which will house central research and training laboratories.
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A Model for Collaboration in Vigilance and Response to Disease Outbreaks
In close collaboration with scientific institutions in Mexico, Cuba and Central America, GLACIER follows the holistic approach of “One Health”. Various disciplines, from virology to vaccine and drug research to the social sciences, work closely with national and international institutions involved in preventive healthcare and pandemic control.
GLACIER seeks to strengthen capacities in the Latin American region by forming a group of experts that supports the multidisciplinary network of institutions; helping to build local research capacity; increasing the number of experts/scientists and trainers with high level training; and engaging regional and international policy makers, allowing for better dissemination of information and faster regional response to crises.
What are GLACIER’s specific objectives?
Objective 1
Connecting academia, the private sector, executive and research directors of Health Organizations, and national policymakers multilaterally.
Objective 2
Providing input on disease emergence, therapeutics and One Health aspects within graduate and post-graduate courses, enabling doctorate opportunities at its individual partner sites, training academic teachers through scientific transdisciplinary exchange and disseminating scientific knowledge to vulnerable populations in Central America.
Objective 3
Providing the Centres’ graduates and grantees with the necessary skills and training for the local and international employment market in the area of Global Health, pandemic prevention and infection diseases research and development.
Objective 4
Strengthening research capacities in Global Health and pandemic prevention at Latin American partner sites, including therapeutics and vaccines development, as well as the creation of a digital data exchange platform and a virtual repository for emerging infectious disease surveillance. Also, establishing transnational exchange between Latin American and German partners, including access to laboratories and joint data analyses.
Objective 5
Generating new scientific findings and transferring them into practice.