Stellenbosch University's (SU) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences' (FMHS) Department of Psychiatry has received an endowment from
Sanford Health for a research fellowship in Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
(FASD).
The endowment was announced during a Sanford Health delegation’s
recent visit to the FMHS at
Stellenbosch University. Sanford Health is one of the largest non-profit
integrated healthcare systems in the United States (US). Sanford Health has established the Sanford
World Clinic initiative, which focuses primarily on International Paediatric
Healthcare. It currently has a presence in four countries.
The fellowship is called the Sanford Hoyme Research
Programme in FASD, and will support a research fellowship to undertake clinical
and genetic research in the prevention and treatment of FASD. It is named after
the Dr Gene Hoyme, the Chief of Genetics and Genomic Medicine and Chief
Academic Officer for Sanford Health. He has led FASD research studies in South
Africa for the past 15 years and helped establish the prevalence rate of FASD
in South Africa, which remains the highest documented rate in the world.
“This research partnership with Stellenbosch University has
been revolutionary in terms of our understanding of this condition. Not only in
terms of helping define the extent of the problem here in South Africa, but
also in terms of knowing how to make a diagnosis quickly and accurately and a
lot of the science around that,” Hoyme said during the unveiling of a plaque in
the Department of Psychiatry to acknowledge the sponsors of the fellowship.
He has collaborated
with Prof Soraya Seedat, head of the Department of Psychiatry at the FMHS, on
FASD research since 2008. This department has an established research programme
in FASD and Hoyme has been the chief dysmorphologist on a series of successive
studies in the Western Cape funded by the National Institutes of Health in the
US. Over the years, Hoyme has mentored early career researchers and clinicians
in South Africa.
“The endowment will allow for the appointment of a talented
early career research fellow, in perpetuity, who will be closely mentored by Dr
Hoyme,” said Prof Soraya Seedat, Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the FMHS.
“The FASD research team is also very excited about the
possibility of establishing a Research Chair in Foetal Alcohol Spectrum
Disorders in the near future, to sustain and expand much needed interventional
and predictive-diagnostic research in this area,” Seedat concluded.