Francois Kiemde

Research and professional experience/ Experience professionnelle (incluant la recherche):

1. Personal Statement

(provide a short description of your research interest and/or motivation)

Biologist by background, he joined the “Institut de Recherche en Sciences de le Santé- Unité de Recherche Clinique de Nanoro” (IRSS-URCN), a public research center based in Nanoro, in July 2009 in the framework of GSK RTS,S phase 3 malaria vaccine trial and other clinical trial. In 2014, he has been engaged by the Ministry of Research of Burkina Faso as Research Assistant and he has been assigned to the “Institut de Recherche en Sciences de le Santé- Unité de Recherche Clinique de Nanoro” (IRSS-URCN).

In June 2014, he successfully obtained a small grant from the International Society of Infectious Diseases (ISID) to investigate the capacity of natural killer cells to lyse erythrocytes infected by Plasmodium falciparum, and to determine the factors associated with cytotoxicity. The title of the study was “Determination in vitro of cytotoxicity of natural killer cells directed again erythrocytes infected by Plasmodium falciparum during pregnancy. In October 2014, he has been recruited as PhD fellow at KIT-Biomedical Research, Amsterdam, and subsequently by the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam (AMC) in May 2015, where he worked on the etiologies of fever episode in children under 5 years of age. He worked under the supervision of Prof Michael Boele van Hensbroek (AMC), Prof Tinto Halidou (IRSS-URCN), Dr Henk Schallig (AMC) and Petra Mens (AMC). During his PhD training, he kept the position of Research Assistant at IRSS-URCN since this PhD was a sandwich PhD program between IRSS-URCN (Burkina Faso) and the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). In 2017, his research team won the discovery award from NESTA Foundation to encourage their joint research.

After obtained his PhD in June 2019, he got back in his home institute where he have been recently appointed as an Associate Researcher by the “Centre National de Recherche Scientifique et Technologique” (CNRST) of which IRSS-URCN is linked.

2. Positions and Employment

Master fellow : December 2008 – July 2009 (University Hopital – Sanou Souro/Bobo – Dioulasso)

Clinical Field Supervisor : July 2009-December 2014 (CRUN)

Research Assistant : Decmber 2014-August 2019 (CRUN)

Research Associate (CNRST) : August 2019 – Ongoing (CRUN)

Other Experience and Professional Memberships

Other Experience :

–          Rapid Diagnostic Test development and Evaluation

–          Developpment of new therapy

–          Antimicrobial resistance

3. Selected Peer-reviewed Publications

1-      RTS,S Clinical Trial Partnership. Efficacy and safety of RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine with or without a booster dose in infants and children in Africa: final results of a phase 3, individually randomized, controlled trial. Lancet. 2015;386(9988):31-45. DOI 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60721-8

2-      Francois Kiemde, Rene Spijker, Petra F. Mens, Halidou Tinto, Michael Boele and Henk D. F. H. Schallig. Aetiologies of non-malaria febrile episodes in children under 5 years in sub-Saharan Africa. Tropical Medicine and International Health 2016:21 (8):943-955. doi:10.1111/tmi.12722.

3-      Francois Kiemde, Massa dit Achille Bonko, Marc Christian Tahita, Palpouguini Lompo, Toussaint Rouamba, Halidou Tinto, Michael Boele van Hensbroek, Petra F. Mens and Henk D. F. H. Schallig. Accuracy of a Plasmodium falciparum specific histidine-rich protein 2 rapid diagnostic test in the context of the presence of non-malaria fevers, prior anti-malarial use and seasonal malaria transmission. Malaria Journal 2017: 16: 294. DOI 10.1186/s12936-017-1941-6

4-      Francois Kiemde, Marc Christian Tahita, Palpouguini Lompo, Toussaint Rouamba, Athanase M. Some, Halidou Tinto, Petra F. Mens, Henk D. F. H. Schallig and Michael Boele van Hensbroek. Treatable causes of fever among children under 5 years in a seasonal malaria transmission area, Nanoro in Burkina Faso. Infectious Diseases of Poverty 2018: 7: 60. DOI 10.1186/s40249-018-0442-3

5-      Francois Kiemde, Marc Christian Tahita, Massa dit Achille Bonko, Petra F. Mens, Halidou Tinto, Michael Boele van Hensbroek and Henk D. F. H. Schallig. Implementation of a malaria rapid diagnostic test in a rural setting of Nanoro, Burkina Faso: from expectation to reality. Malaria Journal 2018: 17: 316. DOI 10.1186/s12936-018-2468-1

6-      Francois Kiemde, Massa dit Achille Bonko, Marc Christian Tahita, Palpouguini Lompo, Halidou Tinto, Petra F. Mens, Henk D. F. H. Schallig and Michael Boele van Hensbroek. Can clinical signs or symptoms combined with basic hematology data be used to predict the presence of bacterial infections in febrile children under-5 years? BMC Pediatric 2018: 18:370. DOI 10.1186/s12887-018-1340-3.

7-      Massa dit Achille Bonko, Francois Kiemde, Marc Christian Tahita, Palpouguini Lompo, Athanase M. Some, Halidou Tinto, Michael Boele van Hensbroek, Petra F. Mens and Henk D. F. H. Schallig. The effect of malaria rapid diagnostic tests results on antimicrobial prescription practices of healthcare workers in Burkina Faso. Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobial 2019: 18:5. DOI 10.1186/s12941-019-0304-2.

8-      Francois Kiemde, Massa dit Achille Bonko, Marc Christian Tahita, Petra F. Mens, Halidou Tinto, Henk D. F. H. Schallig and Michael Boele van Hensbroek. Algorithms for sequential interpretation of a malaria rapid diagnostic test detecting twodifferent targets of Plasmodium species to improve diagnostic accuracy in a rural setting (Nanoro, Burkina Faso). PLoS ONE 2019: 14(2): e0211801. DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0211801.