Imperial scientists will act as mentors for researchers from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in a new centre being launched today.

Scientists from partner institutions in Asia, Africa and South America are in London today for the inaugural meeting of the Wellcome Trust – Imperial College Centre for Global Health Research.

The centre aims to make advances in preventing and treating major health problems of LMICs while fostering the careers of a new generation of scientists from those countries.

It will build on the work of the Wellcome Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine, established at Imperial in 1995, which has formed strong partnerships with numerous institutions worldwide and helped researchers establish their careers in clinical tropical medicine.

The new centre will have a broader scope, encompassing non-communicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes in addition to infectious diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. It will also support scientists from LMICs to apply for PhD and postdoctoral positions at Imperial, funded by Wellcome Trust fellowships, and receive mentorship from experienced researchers.

In addition, the centre will offer exchange visits, short courses, workshops, and distance learning. It will work closely with the Institute of Global Health Innovation to provide opportunities to collaborate with and be trained by researchers from other faculties and the Business School, such as engineers, physicists and computational biologists.

Professor Michael Levin, the centre’s director, said: "Imperial already has well-established partnerships with institutions in low and middle-income countries, but we want to make those links even stronger by helping more of their scientists to obtain Wellcome Trust fellowships and develop research projects in partnership with Imperial academics.

"By providing training and mentorship, we hope to contribute to scientific excellence within local institutions and build capacity in those countries to carry out internationally competitive research into the major health problems that affect them. These problems include both infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases. We hope that the Centre will facilitate partnerships between Imperial academics and our international partners in many different disciplines to address major global health problems."