This application requests funds to continue the Johns Hopkins-Fogarty African bioethics training program. Our program started four years ago. Since then, we have provided one-year bioethics and research ethics training to twelve African professionals and funded two workshops with the African Malaria Network Trust (AMANET). Trainees have returned to Africa to positions of increased responsibility and have provided ethics guidance to local, national, and international bodies. If funded again, we will train 20 additional African professionals over the next four years at the Johns Hopkins Bioethics Institute, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and the NIH Department of Clinical Bioethics. Twelve trainees will complete the one-year program, spending the first six months at Johns Hopkins in an intensive program of bioethics and research methodology courses, IRB observations, a weekly fellows' seminar, other seminars at JHU and the NIH; the Intensive Bioethics Course at Georgetown, serving as teaching assistants in the JHU summer international ethics course and meeting weekly with advisors. While at JHU, each trainee will write a 15-20 page practicum proposal including objectives, literature, methods, budget, and timeline. The second six months is spent completing an original, mentored, funded practicum in their home countries. The practicum focuses on 1-2 of the program's four core competencies: 1) theory and principles; 2) training in research ethics; 3) ethics review boards; and 4) empirical research on research ethics. Two additional trainees per year will complete our new one-month program, taking two intensive one-week courses, special seminars, and visiting OHRP, FDA, and the NIH, and interacting with trainees from three other Fogarty programs. Core program faculty are from the JHU Bioethics Institute and School of Public Health. Five African faculty have long affiliations with our program, and three are alumni of this program. The broader environment housing our program is rich. The JHU Bioethics Institute has ongoing doctoral and postdoctoral programs and a multi-million dollar portfolio of research. The JHU School of Public Health conducts more international research than any other such school in the country. Our School has numerous coveted international training programs, including several from Fogarty. If funded, we will continue to provide rigorous and practical training in research ethics to extraordinary African professionals, build on our successes, use our experience to make our program even better, and continue to mentor and facilitate, as oossible, the bioethics orofessional develooment of both alumni and future trainees.
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