Frank Coenjaerts

Awarded project

"Unravelling the genetic diversity of Hepatitis-C in Suriname; a possible key to understanding disease clustering and achieving viral hepatitis elimination"

Frank Coenjaerts is Associate Professor at the department of Medical Microbiology of the University Medical Utrecht and Chair of the Utrecht Medical School Education Committee at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. In addition, he is a member of the Dutch Society for Medical Microbiology (NVMM), an ISAC Member Society.

He is an experienced Microbiologist, passionate in research targeting viral phylogenetics, replication and pathogenesis.
In the last decade, his broad interest in Microbiology and enthusiasm to share this knowledge lead to an appointment as Associate Professor Teaching. Consequently, teaching and the coordination thereof gradually replaced his research activities, but not interests. While teaching, he started realizing the benefits and power of adapting to interdisciplinary research techniques and searched for options to include these in his own teaching, as well as in the biomedical curricula he is connected with. This journey is still ongoing and brought him from Microbiology, via One Health toward Global Health. From here onwards, it is his personal ambition to take an active role in making our teaching standards available to students in resource-limited settings. He is a member of the core-team establishing the partnership between the medical faculties of Anton de Kom University (Suriname) and Utrecht University (The Netherlands).

Sandip Das Sanyam

Awarded project

"Improving antimicrobial use for the treatment of ocular infections in Nepal, informing prescribing practice"

Sandip Das Sanyam is a senior optometrist and a researcher, leading a research team at Sagarmatha Choudhary Eye Hospital, Lahan, Nepal, since 2019. He is a research project lead with 8 years of clinical practice and research experience. His research is mainly focused on microbial keratitis-led blindness and its prevention in Nepal, with the collaboration of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the International Centre for Eye Health. Sandip is involved in project administration, clinical management, reporting, and publication, along with training activities and conference talks. He also serves as a member of the Institutional Review Committee of the Nepal Netra Jyoti Sangh, Kathmandu, Nepal.