Henry S. Fraser
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Sunday July 20, 2014 - When the Reverend Griffith Hughes, parish priest of St. Lucy, published his Natural History of Barbados in 1750, he literally launched the Age of Enlightenment in Barbados. Newspapers proliferated, theatre flourished and three secondary schools – Combermere, Harrison and Lodge – were established. Barbadians were making a name for themselves, in Britain and North America. Eminent physicians such as Dr. William Hillary were attracted to Barbados and carried out ground breaking research in the 1750s.
It was my dream to re-establish Barbados and UWI Cave Hill as a global centre for medical research, and in 1990 I was challenged by my colleague Trevor Hassell, now Professor Sir Trevor Hassell, to develop a research centre for chronic diseases. With the support of Professor Sir Ken Stuart in Britain and funding from the Overseas Development Agency of the UK, a National Institute of Health Grant awarded to Professor Richard Cooper of Loyola University of Chicago for a study of hypertension which included Barbados (the well-known ICSHIB Study), and the collaboration of the Ministry of Health, the UWI was able to open the doors of the Chronic Disease Research Centre (CDRC) in 1992. Our mission was to do the research that would inform policy, planning and programmes, to temper the growing epidemic of chronic diseases. The site was a suite of three rooms in the condemned residence ‘Avalon’ on Jemmott’s Lane, an early 19th century merchant’s house used as doctors’ flats for the QEH until condemned for lack of maintenance in the early 1980s. Inspection revealed only peeling paint and cosmetic problems! With perseverance we had this 14 room house restored at a fraction of the cost of a new building, and it has worked wonderfully well.
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I’ve seen my dream come true with the recent 10 year anniversary of the Edmund Cohen Vascular Research (ECOVAR) Laboratory. The new (third) Director of the CDRC, Professor Clive Landis, organised a celebration, honoured by the presence of Mr. Peter Cohen, son of the benefactor Mr. Edmund Cohen, founder of Courts. It marked 10 years since the opening on March 31st, 2004, as an annexe to the CDRC.
Actually, the Edmund Cohen Lab is unique. It was delivered with some flair on the back of a lorry. This is the story of the “lab in a container”. I was inspired by the use of retro-fitted, cheap, metal Nissen huts and shipping containers at Hammersmith Hospital, the leading medical research centre in the UK, where I did my specialist training and PhD, and I found Bajan builders retro-fitting them for use as work site offices. So when I discovered that Dr. Clive Landis, a leading researcher at Hammersmith, had taken the brilliant step of marrying a Bajan girl and wanted to work in Barbados, and there was no lab space in the University or the QEH, the penny dropped; Clive and I soon created a splendid lab in a retrofitted, plumbed and “electrified” container!
It works well and is loved by its staff: small but perfect, in an 8 x 40 foot tunnel! 320 square feet, state of the art, for a third the price of a concrete building … and financed by the generosity of Mr. Edmund Cohen, hence the name the ECOVAR Lab, and SAGICOR, and equipped with a grant from BAYER.
Under the leadership of Professor Landis the lab has established itself as the leading vascular research centre in the Caribbean, with 50 plus peer reviewed papers over 10 years. The lab also serves as an Immunology training hub, delivering undergraduate medical and PhD programmes for UWI, publishing HIV research with the National AIDS Program, and acting as regional co-ordinating centre running accredited HIV/AIDS training workshops across the Caribbean. Research is focused on the role of inflammation and its resolution, improving the surgeon’s understanding of inflammation and hemostasis, and it has impacted patient care in ways that will continue to be felt many years to come. A seminal achievement has been creation of the first Clinical Practice Guidelines on attenuating the systemic inflammatory response to heart surgery
The Immunology PhD program was established in 2008 and has two in-house PhD students, Dr. Kim Quimby and Andre Greenidge, and one off-site student, Songee Branch-Beckles at the Ministry of Health. Other research is carried out on sickle cell disease, HIV/AIDS transmission and wound healing in diabetes .
Meanwhile, the CDRC has also grown exponentially, from an embryonic vision and a “lively adolescent” when I demitted office in 2005, it has contributed an enormous body of valuable research under my successor Professor Anselm Hennis: discovery of a NEW gene for glaucoma; the definitive Barbados study of prostate cancer in men of African descent; outcomes of diabetes in pregnancy on teenagers; collaborative asthma study with Johns Hopkins University; definitive population study of lupus; the Barbados Stroke Study, leading to our Stroke Unit at the QEH; Centenarians in Barbados; and the Barbados National Registry for stroke, heart attacks and cancer. It has sourced millions in foreign exchange in grants, provided many jobs and hugely boosted the research reputation of Barbados and the UWI. And its mission is beautifully depicted in the mural “Physicus – the Art of Healthy Living” by Don Small, on the Western wall of the building … Stop and be inspired!
The CDRC is a dynamic, growing Centre, a major star of the University, and the Edmund Cohen Lab, perhaps the JEWEL IN THE CROWN…. Thanks to the commitment, hard work and team work of many, it has all succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
Brickbat: To six policemen in Trinidad who set fire to a teenager. The worst excesses of slavery and the Nazi era are still active across the Caribbean.
Bouquet: To the Prime Minister, who at the meeting of the full Social Partnership on Friday stated that at some stage it may be necessary to widen the grouping due to several agencies “knocking at the door” … “The Social Partnership has really not changed its stakeholder view since its formation and the stage may well be reached in the not too distant future where we broaden its base to include other social partners who have sufficient purchase in society that their voices need to be heard.” (Advocate, Saturday July 19, page 3.)
Professor Fraser is past Dean of Medical Sciences, UWI and Professor Emeritus of Medicine. Website: profhenryfraser.com
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Henry S. Fraser: The Chronic Disease Research Centre – a Cave Hill Star
