News Releases & Research Results New SATREPS Projects for FY 2020 under AMED International Collaborative Research Program

Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED, President: MISHIMA Yoshinao) announced the provisional selection^*1 of two new projects in the Infectious Diseases Control research area concerning “Research on measures to address infectious diseases control attuned to the needs of developing countries” for the Fiscal Year 2020 Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS) program under AMED's International Collaborative Research Program.

The SATREPS is a Japanese government program that promotes international joint research. The program has been structured as a collaboration among the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). Based on the needs of developing countries, AMED and JICA cooperate to promote international joint research targeting global issues with an objective of future utilization of research outcomes through collaboration with ODA. The aim of the program is to acquire new knowledge and technology that lead to the resolution of global issues and the advance of science and technology, and through this process, to create innovations. International joint research under this program also aims to enhance the research and development capabilities of developing countries, and to help create sustainable research systems which could address and resolve issues related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For FY2020, AMED called for project proposals from researchers in Japan in the Infectious Diseases Control research area and began to accept proposals on September 10 th, 2019. A total of 16 eligible proposals was received by the close of applications on November 11 th, 2019. Evaluation committee reviewed the proposal documents^*2 with ex-ante evaluation criterias including ODA perspectives established by the committee. AMED provisionally selected 2 new projects based on the committee evaluation results and will begin the support after the conclusion of contracts.

The SATREPS^*3 programs in other three research areas—Environment/Energy, Bioresources, and Disaster Prevention and Mitigation are managed by a collaboration of JST and JICA, supported by MEXT and MOFA.

*1

Provisional selection: Before starting a project , an international agreement needs to be signed between MOFA and the government of the developing country regarding implementation of the project, followed by an agreement on the details of Technical Cooperation between JICA and the research counterpart(s) in the developing country. However, depending on the situation in the developing country or the result of discussion of details with the research counterpart, a project may result in modifications or even termination. For this reason, the status of these projects at this stage is “provisional selection".

*2

Interviews scheduled after the document review were canceled, due to the pandemic of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). Final evaluation was conducted with the additional documents submitted by candidates.

*3

SATREPS: Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development

“The project for establishment of innovative antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance system using next-generation sequencing and development of simple AMR detection tools optimized for Myanmar.”

Myanmar
(Professor KIRIKAE Teruo; Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, Juntendo University)

 “The trilateral collaboration project for anti-infectious disease drug development: from lead optimization to preclinical testing.”

Indonesia/Malaysia
(Professor NOZAKI Tomoyoshi; Department of Biomedical Chemistry, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo)

* Projects are listed in alphabetical order based on the name of the principal investigator.