The Global Forum on Tuberculosis (TB) Vaccines is the main opportunity for the international stakeholders involved in TB vaccine research and development (R&D) to come together, to share their research and findings, to promote innovation in TB vaccine R&D, and to foster partnerships and collaborations.
The 6th Global Forum on TB Vaccines research and development was organized from 22-25 February 2022 virtually hosted by Toulouse, France under the high patronage of President Emmanuel Macron and Minister of Solidarity and Health Olivier Véran and in the framework of the French Presidency of the council of the European Union.
The goal of the Global Forum on TB is to review the state of the field, share the latest research findings, and identify new and innovative approaches to TB vaccine R&D, with the end goal of developing and deploying new TB vaccines as quickly as possible.
The Global Forum was opened by Mrs Frédérique Vidal, French Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation (France) on 22nd February, who set the scene for the forum, reflecting on 100 years of the global TB response, from the arrival of BCG in 1921 to the growing threat of drug-resistant TB today & COVID related setbacks.
A special dedicated Indo-French session on International Collaboration in “Combatting Infectious Diseases: strengthening ties between France and India” was also organized at this occasion on 24th February. The session included the following noticeable speakers from France and India:
- Dr. Stewart Cole, President of the Institute Pasteur, France
- Dr. Shekhar C. Mande, Director General, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Ministry of Science & Technology, India
- Dr. Antoine Petit, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)
- Dr. Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary Department for Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, India
The session was moderated by Srini Kaveri, Director of the CNRS Office in India.
The panellists were highly optimistic about establishing scientific projects at basic, therapeutic and vaccine aspects of tuberculosis. The upcoming Institut Pasteur – CSIR-CCMB campus devoted to biomedical research will be a boon for tuberculosis research. The speakers also emphasized the need for Public-Private Partnership in eradicating tuberculosis.
The event was organized in collaboration with International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) https://www.iavi.org/, TuBerculosis Vaccine Initiative (TBVI) https://www.tbvi.eu/, Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology (IPBS – Toulouse) https://www.ipbs.fr/ and University of Toulouse https://en.univ-toulouse.fr/.
Health is a strategic sector of collaboration between India and France. Hospitals, research centres, institutions of excellence and businesses have worked together. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in March 2018 during the first Indo-French Knowledge Summit between the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Institute National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), France, in order to develop research cooperation in medicine, life sciences and health. The focus areas include diabetes and metabolic disorders, bio-ethics focusing on ethics and regulatory issues of gene editing techniques, rare diseases.
Recently, Institut Pasteur and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at a hybrid signing ceremony on 25th January 2022. Aimed at making both our countries prepared for tomorrow’s health challenges, the MoU includes collaboration in important areas Genomics of Inherited Diseases, Personalized Medicine, Infectious Diseases, Antimicrobial Resistance and Development of New Models for Drug Screening.
Tackling Health-related issues is on the agenda of cooperation of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) with India. Recently, CNRS has signed an agreement with the Department of Biotechnology and CSIR to collaborate on Biomedical Engineering Host-pathogen interactions and Immunotherapeutics.
In addition, the French Institute in India and its partners are preparing an exhibition series commemorating the History of Indo-French scientific partnership. Among many themes, the exhibition will explore Health as one of the key areas where India and France have been working together for decades.