About the Stephen Lawn Memorial Fund
The Stephen Lawn Memorial Fund was established in 2016 through a global partnership between the TB Centre of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (UK), the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre, at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and The Union, also supported by The Lancet.
The Research Leadership Prize, as part of the Fund, is for innovative research on tuberculosis and HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and acknowledges young researchers conducting promising work focused on reducing the disease burden of TB and HIV/AIDS in Africa. The Prize will be presented annually at the Union World Conference on Lung Health and consists of:
- Free Union Conference registration.
- An award of GBP 1,000, and a certificate.
- A profile/news item by The Lancet.
- An invitation to attend the Stephen Lawn Memorial Lecture in March of the next year (alternating London and Cape Town) with an opportunity for the winner to present their work in a seminar, and network with colleagues.
Nominees for The Stephen Lawn TB-HIV Research Prize will be clinicians and/or researchers from any country who have completed post-graduate training (MPH, PhD, MD or post-doc) no longer than five years ago, who are under 40 years old at the time of the Union World Conference and who have successfully undertaken innovative research that is expected to impact on TB / HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. Results of this research may be published OR unpublished.
Criteria for selection
The Stephen Lawn TB/HIV Research Leadership Prize will be administered by The Union. The global honoree will be selected by a panel of leading experts organised by The Union and the above partner organisations. Nominees will be assessed on:
- The innovative component of their research as well as its scientific rigor and quality.
- The potential impact of their work on TB-HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- The extent to which the award might contribute to furthering the applicant's work and leadership in the fight against TB-HIV.
Recipients
2023: In a very competitive field, Dr Andrew D Kerkhoff, Assistant Professor at Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, USA, won the 2021 Stephen Lawn Award. Based on his research which was innovative, of high scientific rigor and which the committee felt impacted on the TB-HIV epidemic in sub-Sharan Africa. He also combined this scientific endeavour with strong leadership in the fight against HIV-associated TB in sub-Saharan Africa.
2022: Dr Bern-Thomas Nyang’wa, Medical Director at Medecins sans Frontieres and Dr Ruvandhi Nathavitharana, Assistant Professor in Infectious Diseases, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, USA, were joint winners of the 2022 Stephen Lawn Award.
2021: Dr Alberto García-Basteiro, Associate Research Professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health in Spain and TB research coordinator at the Manhica Health Research Centre in Mozambique, won the 2021 Stephen Lawn Award. This was principally for his leadership in the field of tuberculosis and his innovative, high quality and impactful research on TB diagnostics in high HIV-TB burden areas of Africa.
2020: Dr Nicole Salazar-Austin, Assistant Professor of Paediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA, won the 2020 Stephen Lawn Award. This was for her promising research into preventing childhood tuberculosis and reducing the disease burden of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in Africa.
2019: Dr Sean Wasserman, Senior Lecturer and Consultant in the Division of Infectious Diseases and HIV Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town was awarded the 2019 award. Dr Wasserman is an outstanding investigator who has already made impactful contributions in the field of TB-HIV research.
2018: The 2018 winner was Dr Christine Sekaggya-Wiltshire, who leads the HIV-TB clinic at the Infectious Diseases Institute at Makerere University in Kampala. Dr Sekaggya-Wiltshire supervises care for complex cases of TB that are referred from health centres, and has conducted pharmacokinetic studies on anti-TB drugs in HIV patients.
2017: The inaugural Stephen Lawn TB-HIV Research Leadership Prize was awarded in at the 48th Union Conference on Lung Health to Dr Leo Martinez for contributions to reducing the burden of TB and HIV/AIDS in Africa.