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Zimbabwe’s plans for nanotechnology-enabled drug treatments for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS

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It’s a big gamble for a country that has a relatively small national budget but Zimbabwe is focusing a significant chunk of its science funding to nanotechnology-enabled drug treatments according to the Dec. 11, 2012 news article by Munyaradzi Makoni for scidev.net,

The Zimbabwean government has shown signs of embracing nanotechnology, earmarking it for extensive funding from the science ministry’s 2013 budget for new programmes.

According to Rungano Karimanzira, director of commercialisation of research and development at the ministry, 60 per cent of the new programme funding has been allocated to nanotechnology — a move announced with the unveiling of the national budget last month (16 November).

After years of political instability and international isolation, Zimbabwe now aims to revive science and use nanotechnology to research and produce drugs, particularly treatments for tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS.

Clive Mphambela’s Nov. 16, 2012 article for the Zimbabwe Independent (accessed Dec. 13, 2012 from The Zimbabwe Situation) describes the country’s 2013 budget and Zimbabwe’s economic situation,

FINANCE Minister Tendai Biti yesterday presented a paltry US$3,8 billion
“developmental budget”, describing it as the most difficult to construct in
the short life of the inclusive government.

…

Biti’s budget is smaller than South Africa’s retail chain supermarket group,
Pick n Pay whose average annual turnover is R55,3 billion (US$6,1 billion).

However, he said numerous downside risks, including potential political
instability, threatened his budget.

Biti said the multitude of challenges facing the economy required a
fundamental re-think of the state, economics and development in Zimbabwe.

“In this regard, the 2013 national budget seeks to offer leadership and
direction on the bold structural measures that must be taken to unleash
Zimbabwe’s growth potential in pursuit of the MTP’s [Medium Term Plan] vision of constructing a
modern democratic developmental state,” said Biti.

The Finance minister proposed a 15-point roadmap which would in the
short-term seek to reverse the current slow-down and refocus the economy on
a higher growth trajectory.

Even before the 2013 budget was announced, Zimbabwe’s national nanotechnology programme was making news (from the Makoni article),

The country’s first national nanotechnology programme was launched in October by science and technology development minister Heneri Dzinotyiwei during the opening of the Zimbabwe Nanotechnology Centre (ZINC) at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare.

Dzinotyiwei said the programme will focus on developing medicinal drugs, and will identify and undertake studies in nanomedicine geared towards bringing benefits to the entire country.

“We hope that we can ultimately dedicate around US$1 million to the nanotechnology programme,” he said.

ZINC and its nanomedicine-focused partnership with the University of Zimbabwe, the University of Buffalo and Chinhoyi University of Technology was mentioned here in a Sept. 24, 2012 posting.

Zimbabwe and its international nanotechnology center, ZINC

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A Sept.24, 2012 news item on Nanowerk provides information about a new nanotechnology center in Zimbabwe,

With 14 percent of Zimbabwe’s population living with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis as a co-infection, the need for new drugs and new formulations of available treatments is crucial.

To address these issues, two of the University at Buffalo’s [UB] leading research centers, the Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics (ILPB), and the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences have signed on to launch the Zimbabwe International Nanotechnology Center (ZINC) — a national nanotechnology research program — with the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) and the Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT).

This collaborative program will initially focus on research in nanomedicine and biosensors at UZ and energy at CUT. ZINC has grown out of the NIH [US National Institute of Health] Fogarty International Center, AIDS International Training and Research Program (AITRP) that was awarded to UB and UZ in 2008 to conduct HIV research training and build research capacity in Zimbabwe and neighboring countries in southern Africa.

I decided to find out more about Zimbabwe and found a map and details in a Wikipedia essay,

Location of Zimbabwe within the African Union (accessed Sept. 24, 2012 from the Wikipedia essay on Zimbabwe)

Zimbabwe (… officially the Republic of Zimbabwe) is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest (making this area a quadripoint) and Mozambique to the east. The capital is Harare. Zimbabwe achieved recognised independence from Britain in April 1980, following a 14-year period as an unrecognised state under the predominantly white minority government of Rhodesia, which unilaterally declared independence in 1965. Rhodesia briefly reconstituted itself as black-majority ruled Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1979, but this order failed to gain international acceptance.

Zimbabwe has three official languages: English, Shona and Ndebele.

Getting back to Zimbabwe, Alan on the Science Business website posted on Sept. 24, 2012 about ZINC and the partnership (excerpted from the posting),

University at Buffalo in New York and two universities in the southern African nation of Zimbabwe will collaborate on a new nanotechnology research program in pharmacology. University of Zimbabwe in Harare and the Chinhoyi University of Technology in Mashonaland West, working with Buffalo’s Institute for Lasers, Photonics, and Biophotonics, along with New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences also on the Buffalo campus, will establish the Zimbabwe International Nanotechnology Center (ZINC).

ZINC aims to develop an international research and training capability in nanotechnology that advances the field as contributor to Zimbabwe’s economic growth. The collaboration is expected to focus on research in nanomedicine and biosensors for health care at University of Zimbabwe, while the Chinhoyi University of Technology partnership will conduct research related to energy.

The University of Buffalo Sept. 24, 2012 news release provides more details,

The UB ILPB and TPRC [Translational Pharmacy Research Core] collaboration recognized that the fields of pharmacology and therapeutics have increasingly developed links with emerging areas within the field of nanosciences in an attempt to develop tissue/organ targeted strategies that will lead to disease treatment and eradication. Research teams will focus on emerging technologies, initially focused in nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine for health care.

“Developing nanoformulations for HIV and tuberculosis diagnostics and therapeutics, as well as new tuberculosis drug development, are just a few of the innovative strategies to address these co-infections that this research collaboration can provide,” said Morse [Gene D. Morse, PharmD, Professor of Pharmacy Practice, associate director of the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences and director of the Translational Pharmacy Research Core {TPRC}].

“In addition, the development of new nanotechnology-related products will jumpstart the economy and foster new economic initiatives in Zimbabwe that will yield additional private-public partnerships.”

Morse says that the current plans for a “Center of Excellence” in clinical and translational pharmacology in Harare at UZ will create a central hub in Africa, not just for Zimbabwe but for other countries to gain new training and capacity building in many exciting aspects of nanotechnology as well.

Good luck to ZINC and its partners!