Dr Marie-Alice Deville - Country Programme Manager
(Rwanda and Burundi)

Marie-Alice Deville did most of her studies in France but for her last year of University, she attended McGill University, Montreal, Canada. This is where she first developed her interest for thalassaemias, a group of blood-related inherited disorders, which affect mostly the poor populations living close to the equator, all around the world. Marie-Alice thus decided to do a PhD in Molecular and Cellular biology in the Université Claude Bernard-Lyon I, France, focusing on the transcriptional regulation of the human genes responsible for the production of haemoglobin both in control and affected individuals. She obtained her PhD in 2003 and then resumed her study within the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, an MRC funded research institute which is part of Oxford University. After four years there, in April 2007, Marie-Alice chose to opt for a career closer to the reality of the health issue in Africa and applied successfully to join SCI in May 2007. She is funded by Geneva Global through the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Disease Control (GNNTDC) to manage the Burundi/Rwanda NTD control programme.