Professor Michael Good

As part of new initiatives to enhance the academic environment at the University of Ghana, I have decided to establish the Vice Chancellor’s Occasional Lecture Series that will attract highly accomplished academics and other intellectuals to make presentations to staff and students of the University based on their research works and other relevant experiences.

The first in the series will be delivered by Professor Michael Good. Professor Good is an NHMRC Australia Fellow at Griffith University, the past Director of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, a past President of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes, and a past Director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Vaccine Technology. In 2006 he was appointed to the Chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. In 2008 he was a Steering Committee member and Co-Chair of the “long-term national health strategy” of the 2020 Summit.  Also in 2008, he was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to medical research and contributions to education.  In 2009 he won the Australian Museum CSIRO Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science.  In 2010 he was named a “Queensland Great” by the Queensland Premier.  He graduated MD PhD DSc from the University of Queensland and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne.  He undertook postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland before returning to Australia in 1988.  His interests are in the field of immunity and immunopathogenesis to malaria and group A streptococcus/rheumatic fever, with particular relevance to the development of vaccines.  His team is currently testing new vaccines to prevent malaria and rheumatic heart disease, the latter of which is highly prevalent with our Indigenous population.

Professor Michael Good’s visit to the University of Ghana has been initiated by Professor Isabella Quakyi, former Dean of the School of Public Health, with whom he has had extensive research collaboration. During his visit to the University of Ghana, he will hold discussions on future collaboration with relevant research scientists of the University. He will be hosted by the Vice Chancellor.

Professor Michael Good will speak on “Research Efforts, Past and Present, to Develop an Effective and Affordable Malaria Vaccine”, and this will take place at the Centre for African Wetlands on Thursday, 17^th May 2012, at 10 am.

I would like to invite all interested colleagues and students to what promises to be a very exciting and very informative lecture. This should be of particular interest to the College of Health Sciences, the Faculty of Science, as well as other social scientists interested in health research. I look forward to welcoming all of you to the first in the Vice Chancellor’s Occasional Lecture series.

Professor Ernest Aryeetey

Vice Chancellor