ACEPRD HISTORY


Introduction

The Africa Centre of Excellence in Phytomedicine Research and Development (ACEPRD) was established in 2014 through a World Bank alliance between the regional governments of West Africa, to harness the untapped potentials of collaboration among African researchers with the focus of creating a sustainable agenda for health innovation in Nigeria and Africa. The Centre is one of the ten (10) Centres of excellence selected from Nigeria to contribute to health care development in Africa as a way of exploiting its biodiversity. The Centre advances Knowledge through discovery, dissemination and application of research findings, addressing critical challenges i the healthcare system. it also creates opportunities for collaboration and networking that strengthens international competitive research in phytomedicine and drug management in Africa.

Our mandate is to train high caliber and critical thinkers who can solve health problems in their communities, establish relationship between the academia and the industry, compete with the outside world in research and development; strengthen national and regional bio-economy through training and biomedical research, adopting new trends in science and technology to deliver new phytomedicine products.

Phytomedicine is the key to providing significantly for the discovery of new medicines. The Centre will contribute through testing of medicinal herbs, microorganisms and fungi in our ecosystem for lead molecules, and creating a comprehensive regional and national repository that will serve as a research tool for the academia and industry in drug development.

The repository will provide equal access to scientific excellence and building capacity to support public health development in Africa by connecting, computing and biomedical software for phytomedicine data storage and information to pharmaceutical industries on lead compounds from microorganisms, fungi and plants. The centre will initiate the application of phytomedicine to boost the treatment of neglected tropical diseases using state-of-the-art technologies in less time and less cost.

Objective

  1. To achieve excellence in educational training and applied research in drug discovery, production and management of phytomedicine.

  2. To provide specialization that addresses regional and national health challenges and strengthening capacity and application of phytomedicine research and development as well as knowledge dissemination.

  3. To facilitate an enabling environment that will stimulate promising research and training, facilitating dissemination, storage and sharing of academic, socio-economic and cultural development in Africa.

Challenges

The Regional health challenges of the new millennium requires innovative thinking and cutting edge technological research ingenuity with focus on reducing the high cost and non-availability of some vital medicines to manage African neglected diseases. Exploring our biodiversity and opportunities for the cultivation, preservation, development of regional bio-economy, biological models and new technologies to provide specific solutions in the healthcare and fostering economic potential is the conceptual framework tool for boosting the development of phytomedicine and drug market in Africa. Research and development will pave the way for strengthening competitiveness of our pharmaceutical industries with that of the Western World. Our research capacity development philosophy is to empower both staff and students with knowledge, skills and expertise to contribute to academic, socioeconomic and cultural development.

Academic Programs of ACEPRD

In order to reinforce its reputation for innovation in its teaching methods and leading edge research, The Centre is taking a leading role as a Centre of Excellence in Phytomedicine Research and Development by initiating programmes to strengthen the teaching and training. The courses are as follows:
  1. MSc. Pharmacognosy
  2. MSc. Clinical Pharmacy
  3. MSc. Biotechnology
  4. MSc. Bioinformatics and Genomics
  5. MSc. Pharmaceutical Microbiology
  6. PhD. Pharmacognosy
  7. PhD. Clinical Pharmacy
  8. PhD. Biotechnology
  9. PhD. Pharmaceutical Microbiology

These courses above have been accreditation locally by Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) and internationally by HCERES, France. These programs are domiciled in the various departments of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Jos.

The centre recruited both Local and International students who are duly sponsored for their various post graduate programs. Local students are admitted from all over Nigeria. Students are from all over Africa, both from the Francophone and Anglophone Countries. Total number of students for the post-graduate program under ACEPRD support from 2015 to 2019 is 329.

All students enrolled in the Centre’s programs will undertake a one-month internship program at an industry-related environment. The internship program takes place at the end of the first semester for Masters students and after the first 6 months for PhD students. The Centre provides transportation allowance and stipend for upkeep for students who have a place for internship in any specific location within Nigeria.

Our graduated students are been tracked in their places of work such as Hospitals, Universities, Industries and NGO‘s.

Training

The training program is aimed at equipping and offering an ideal research environment to young researchers in various levels, postgraduate, postdoctoral and junior scientists. Building capacity and skills in institutional project management to enable students who are critical thinkers and problem solvers with professional disposition take the lead in their areas of need and technological ingenuity.

ACEPRD Laboratories

The Centre has laboratories equipped with state of the art automated and computerized equipment for research work with competent staff who manage the laboratories to guarantee satisfactory, acceptable and accurate results. The Centre's laboratories comprises of six (6) sections;
  1. Fly (Drosophila Melanogaster) Laboratory
  2. Micro-biology Laboratory
  3. Molecular Biology Laboratory
  4. Genomic Laboratory
  5. General Laboratory
  6. Bioinformatics/Computer Laboratory

The Centre has the ability to run internal and external researchers in biological sciences and biomedical sciences at affordable costs for researchers, undergraduate and post graduate students, including senior research fellows.

Students can access laboratory facilities at the Centre, which is located at the University of Jos Senior Staff Quarters on Road 4, as well as at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences.