Bath academics visit Emory University to strengthen water links

Professor Gary Hawley, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering & Design and Dr Tom Arnot from the Department of Chemical Engineering, were hosted recently by Bath alumnus, Professor Raymond F. Schinazi (BSc Chemistry 1972, PhD 1976, Honorary DSc 2006) at Emory University in Atlanta, USA.

Professor Schinazi is the Frances Winship Walters Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Laboratory of Biochemical Pharmacology at Emory and a great advocate for collaboration between Bath and Emory.

Given the University's recent success in attracting substantial funding from Wessex Water to help establish the Water Innovation and Research Centre, the focus of the trip was to enhance the partnership between the two institutions with a renewed emphasis on this major research area.

During the visit, Professor Hawley and Dr Arnot met with a number of academics who are part of the Centre for Global Safe Water, which is housed at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. The key ambition of their Centre is to improve access to safe water and reduce the burden of waterborne disease and death through laboratory research and working within developing countries.

Professor Hawley and Dr Arnot highlighted that the University of Bath has a developing research agenda in the area of sustainable water that cuts across many of its discipline bases. It was agreed that by combining the multi-disciplinary research and practical interests of both universities, progress can be made towards providing safe water throughout the world.

Professor Hawley said: “We are grateful to Professor Schinazi for facilitating this visit, which was extremely informative. The developing international relationship between our two institutions will bring combined research efforts to address many of the water related health issues that the world currently faces.”

Professor Schinazi said: "Our work on drug discovery focuses on reducing morbidity and mortality globally, and I am grateful to Bath, my alma mater, for helping me to achieve that goal. For the past four years, the Schinazi International Exchange Programme between Bath and Emory University has been an effective way to promote research. With the growing collaboration between Emory's Global Centre for Safe Water and Dr Tom Arnot and Professor Gary Hawley, I anticipate that research between the two universities will continue to blossom and have a broader impact on human health around the world."

Professor Schinazi generously created the Schinazi International Exchange Programme (SIEP) to nurture key research collaborations between the two universities. This trip highlighted an exciting new area where both can have a combined global impact. SIEP is to be re-launched to encourage working partnerships from all areas of the University to combine efforts on specialised projects in the areas of water safety, water security and water policy by using the diverse talent at both Bath and Emory.