Wednesday, June 26th 019, in the Executive Lounge of IMERI building, Faculty of Medicine University of Indonesia (FMUI) celebrates 30th year anniversary of their research partnership with Leiden University Medical Center Celebrates (LUMC).
The event was held with great fanfare, attended by FMUI’s dean Prof. Dr. dr. Ari Fahrial Syam, SpPD-KGEH, MMB, and LUMC’s dean Prof. dr. Pancras, C.W Hogendoorn. Also seen on the event, drg. Balduri Widanarko, M.KKK, PhD as the head of International Relation University of Indonesia, Prof. Henri A Verbrugh, MD, PhD as the vice director of IMERI, teachers, and FMUI students who joined the FMUI0LUMC collaborative programs, also representatives from Indonesian Dutch Embassy Mr. Roel van der Veen.
The partnership between FMUI and LUMC started 30 years ago on 1989. Back then, Prof. Dr. Dra. Taniawati Supali (Professor of the Parasitology Department) and Prof. dr. Maria Yazdanbakhsh (Professor of LUMC and also an Adjunct Professor of FMUI) did a research collaboration for the first time in Sumatera. The did a research in lymphatic filariasis in Sumatera. Both are the pioneers of FMUI-LUMC collaboration, and are still active doing research collaboration till this day. Since then the partnerships between both parties went smoothly and produced many researches in different regions of Indonesia.
FMUI-LUMC also did a collaborative research on parasitic infection and immunology in Nangapanda, Ende, Nusa Tenggara Timur during the period of 2007-2011, receiving fund from Scientific Program Indonesia-Netherlans-Koninklijke, Nederlandse Akademia van Wetenschappen (SPIN-KNAW) 2. This research produced more than 15 international publications and 5 doctoral graduates.
Since then, partnership developments were done continuously, especially when the Higher Education Directory (Dikti), Research and Higher Education Ministry, and Educational Fund Management Institution (LPDP) provide doctoral scholarships.
The research partnerships also involve the Department of Internal Medicine, Metabolic and Endocrinology Division, FMUI-RSCM, and was funded by SPIN-KNAW 3 and also other funding from Dikti and UI.
Three of FMUI’s staff, dr. Yenny Djuardy (Department of Parasitology), dr. Aprilianto E. Wiria, PhD (Department of Parasitology), and dr. Dicky L. Tahapary, SpPD, PhD (Department of Internal Medicine), successfully got their PhD degree from LUMC.
For the next collaborative program, another staff from FMUI dr, Farid Kurniawan, SpPD, from the Department of Internal Medicine, will be joining the doctoral program. On the program, dr. Farid will be researching the effect of urbanization to the metabolic, inflammatory change, titled “Gut Ecosystems Changes in Urbanization and its Contribution on Obesity and Type II Diabetes Pathogenesis”
LUMC also provided a chance for FMUI preclinical year students to join Mechanism of Diseases 1 and 2 program, and for clinical year student to join Half Minor program. Within 2014-2018, 42 FMUI students was given a chance to join the program. And in exchange 20 LUMC students did a research exchange in FMUI. On October 2019, another LUMC students will be joining the Half Minor program in FMUI.
FMUI has a goal to become World Class Research Universities, therefore FMUI continues to develop partnerships to increase their research and social program activities. The partnership was done to make the world see the potential that FMUI has as a world class university.
(Public Relations FMUI)