AUTM Newsletter , TMGH 3rd annual meeting (April 26, 2006)

Technology Managers for Global Health

Allyson Best, University of Mississippi

Technology Managers for Global Health Chair Usha Balakrishnan, MIHR-USA, and 2006 Co-Chair Mohammed Jeenah, University of Pretoria, South Africa, greeted more than 40 participants to the third TMGH SIG meeting. The theme for the AUTM 2006 Annual Meeting, "Improving Society," echoes the group's commitment to awareness, information and resource sharing, and advocacy for global health-related technology transfer issues.

An activity report for the period January 2005 to March 2006 was distributed and marked many accomplishments by TMGH volunteers, several of whom, designated as TMGH liaisons, shared their perspectives. Many of these activities were undertaken in collaboration with MIHR and with the financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation. The MIHR-TMGH booklet, Global Health Partnerships and Academic Technology Transfer was produced and distributed to all U.S. and Canadian AUTM members in 2005. The results of the Global Health & Technology Transfer Survey are available on the TMGH Web site and were presented in a poster session at the Annual Meeting.

To enhance cross-sector linkages, several sessions, visits and speaking engagements have been organized. Conference sessions: Gordon Research Conference (2005-Oxford), Licensing Executive Society (LES) 2005 and several sessions with global product development partnerships at AUTM 2006.

Upcoming sessions in 2006 include the CDC-Biosouth Technology Forum, LES-AUTM Joint Spring Meeting and Global Health Council annual meeting. Publications relating to the survey and the LES annual meeting session have been submitted to the AUTM JournalTM and Les Nouvelles, respectively.

In a round robin that followed, all the participants introduced themselves and the nature of their interest in the SIG. TMGH includes professionals from a wide variety of private, public and nonprofit sectors. TMGH and MIHR, in the spirit of AUTM's launch of The Better World Project, are developing curriculum and training programs relating to global health topics.