Ali in talks with Nobel Prize winner, cancer specialist on new medical school, council

A new Council of Science and Medicine is being developed and President Dr. Irfaan Ali held talks with Cancer Research Scientist and Nobel Laureate, Professor Dr. James Allison and Oncology and Immunology Professor, Dr Padmanee Sharma.

After a meeting with the President on Tuesday, the Nobel Prize winner related that the President is keen on pursuing vaccine and medicine development in Guyana.

As part of that focus, a Council of Science and Medicine should be set up.

Discussions also focused on building a medical university, a medical school and possibly, a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programme in Guyana.

“The President had good ideas about the way things can be done… which include vaccine development and drug development which will bring Guyana right into the mainstream of modern medicine and modern technology,” Professor Allison said in a video aired on the President’s official Facebook page.

Meanwhile, Professor Sharma said potentially developing a new medical school in Guyana could help to attract foreign students to Guyana.

Professor Allison’s discoveries have led to new cancer treatments for the deadliest cancers and he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on special cancer therapy.

Professor Sharma is a professor of genitourinary medical oncology and immunology in the Division of Cancer Medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, where she specialises in renal, prostate, and bladder cancers.

At a recent event, President Ali said a new medical scientific council could soon be established in Guyana, and that body will be tasked with determining what international development can boost local healthcare.