Lashitew Gedamu

Biography

Dr. Lashitew Gedamu has trained several Master of Science and PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, research associates and assistants, technicians and undergraduates in his laboratory at the University of Calgary. At present, most of his trainees hold full professorship positions in Canada, USA, Sweden and India.  Others have taken the MD/PhD route and are successful in the medical profession and clinical research.

As part of an ongoing active collaboration between his group at the University of Calgary and the Armauer Hansen Research Institute (AHRI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dr. Gedamu had the opportunity to train five MSc students at AHRI. One of these students (Teklu K. Gerbaba) has completed his PhD in 2011 in Dr. Gedamu’s lab and is currently a PDF in Andre Buret’s lab.  Abebe G. Bayih has completed his PhD thesis in 2013 in Dr Gedamu’s lab and is currently a PDF in Dr Dylan Pillai’s lab working on Malaria. Two of his other trainees have recently completed PhDs’ from the University of Bergen, Norway and the University of Madrid, Spain (appointed at AHRI as PDF since 2012).

As part of capacity building in molecular biology in Ethiopia, Dr. Gedamu has organized and provided training in laboratory-based molecular biology course at AHRI (May 19- June 15, 2003), a laboratory-based Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics course at AHRI (June 25-July 13, 2007- 2010) and trained several individuals from different institutes and universities in Ethiopia. A one week training in Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology was also delivered to MSc/PhD students and staff members at the Medical School, Addis Ababa University (July 16-20, 2007). This is an ongoing course delivered in collaboration with Professors, Drs. Guido van Marle and Wendy Hutchins, and undergraduate students from the BHSc program, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary and AHRI with funding from International partnership Global Health program/ ASM/UIGC. Since 2011 the training has been delivered for two weeks in July at Gondar University, Gondar, Ethiopia and will be extended to the Bahir Dar University in July, 2014. Overall, more than 300 have been trained over a ten year period.

Work in this laboratory is focused on leishmaniasis, a chronic disease caused by the intracellular protozoa parasite Leishmania which affects more than 500 million people in several countries in the world. The goal is to hopefully understand the survival mechanism(s) of the parasite in human macrophages (a stressful environment) during infection at the molecular level and ultimately use molecular probes for diagnostic purposes as well as design vaccine(s) for future treatment of individuals infected with this parasite