UAEM Western Committees
The Access Committee
The Access committee has a crucial role in leading UAEM-Western's access campaign because it is the committee that will engage with University structures to monitor and the university’s licensing and patenting policies for medical innovations. This will be done by advocating for Western to adopt a global access licensing framework (GALF) which ensures that medical developments as a result of medical innovations and technologies at western will be kept at a low cost for underdeveloped and developing countries.
The Access committee will learn about Western's Technology Transfer Office (TTO) – the office that is in charge of brokering patent and licensing agreements between the university and corporations – and its research policies. We will share the knowledge we gather with the other UAEM-Western committees to keep club members aware of issues that are paramount to UAEM'S goals and initiatives.
In addition to addressing these major goals, the Access committee will also have two sub-committees:
TPP Project Sub-Committee:
Bilateral and multilateral ‘free trade’ agreements (FTA) in the 21st century are circumventing provisions in the Doha declarations which have safeguards for public health. Specifically, these FTAs propose inequitable language that pushes international policy (IP) to benefit corporate private interest while undermining public health and access to medicines and knowledge. These IP policies will also severely undermine the downstream effects of UAEM’s crucial work in Universities. UAEM has been advocating against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement in various ways. Our goal is to prevent the IP and Investor chapters from putting up barriers to access of affordable medicines/ medical technologies and open spread of medical research.
The TPP Project Sub-Committee will work with members in:
Access Report Card Project Sub-Committee:
The University Global Health Impact Report Card (http://globalhealthgrades.org/about/) evaluates the top U.S. and Canadian research universities on their contributions to urgent global health research and access to treatment worldwide. It uses publicly-available and self-reported information to evaluate three key questions:
The sub-committee members will be in charge of collecting information for the access portion of the report card following a set of guidelines given by UAEM.
The Innovation Committee
UAEM Western's Innovation Committee focuses on promoting research about neglected diseases, a greatly overlooked yet crucial area of research. Examples of the 17 most important neglected diseases can be found at: http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/diseases/en/
On a global scale, UAEM's Innovation committee is collaborating to develop an online neglected diseases curriculum that we can hopefully make available to all countries, including those most affected by neglected diseases. At Western University, we are also working to establish our own neglected diseases curriculum. We also have many joint WHO-UAEM research internship opportunities available. These are often more suitable for thesis, Masters, or Ph.D. students. Everyone is welcome to help develop our neglected diseases curriculum. Please let us know if you're interested in joining our cause!
The Innovation committee is also engaged in projects such as "Access to Medicines Week", where student campuses work together to draw attention to the need for new approaches to Research and Development (R&D) of medicine. Ultimately, we are striving to implement a needs-driven research system that prevents antimicrobial resistance from becoming an even more serious global health threat than it already is and making sure we aren't late to the game in addressing future global health challenges! For the past couple of years, the innovation committee has also focused on alternative R&D strategies such as the "Take Back Our Medicines" campaign, which targets the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other government funders of biomedical research and development in order to make medicines affordable globally. By leveraging public funding, we can make sure that the fruits of research conducted at universities are accessible to all low-and middle-income countries and available affordably in Canada. No one should be sick because they are poor, or poor because they are sick!
The Empowerment Committee
What does the UAEM Empowerment Committee do?
• Raise awareness for Global Diseases and Global Access Licensing at Western
• Plan events to empower the student body to create change
• Collaborate with other organizations on campus to create a unified student alliance
• Bi-monthly newsletter
• ...and much much more!
The Access committee has a crucial role in leading UAEM-Western's access campaign because it is the committee that will engage with University structures to monitor and the university’s licensing and patenting policies for medical innovations. This will be done by advocating for Western to adopt a global access licensing framework (GALF) which ensures that medical developments as a result of medical innovations and technologies at western will be kept at a low cost for underdeveloped and developing countries.
The Access committee will learn about Western's Technology Transfer Office (TTO) – the office that is in charge of brokering patent and licensing agreements between the university and corporations – and its research policies. We will share the knowledge we gather with the other UAEM-Western committees to keep club members aware of issues that are paramount to UAEM'S goals and initiatives.
In addition to addressing these major goals, the Access committee will also have two sub-committees:
TPP Project Sub-Committee:
Bilateral and multilateral ‘free trade’ agreements (FTA) in the 21st century are circumventing provisions in the Doha declarations which have safeguards for public health. Specifically, these FTAs propose inequitable language that pushes international policy (IP) to benefit corporate private interest while undermining public health and access to medicines and knowledge. These IP policies will also severely undermine the downstream effects of UAEM’s crucial work in Universities. UAEM has been advocating against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement in various ways. Our goal is to prevent the IP and Investor chapters from putting up barriers to access of affordable medicines/ medical technologies and open spread of medical research.
The TPP Project Sub-Committee will work with members in:
- Raising awareness and discussion of the TPP on campus and in the community;
- Researching the TPP and keeping up-to-date with developments regarding the TPP
- Urging University administration to publicly denounce the TPP (or raise specific concerns regarding the TPP);
- Approaching local MPs to inform, educate and put pressure on them to actively discuss the TPP and its implications (additionally, MPs pay particular attention to community based media outlets, therefore members of the TPP Project Sub-committee can try to pen articles and op-ed in their community newspapers)
Access Report Card Project Sub-Committee:
The University Global Health Impact Report Card (http://globalhealthgrades.org/about/) evaluates the top U.S. and Canadian research universities on their contributions to urgent global health research and access to treatment worldwide. It uses publicly-available and self-reported information to evaluate three key questions:
- Are universities investing in innovative medical research that addresses the neglected health needs of low-income communities worldwide?
- When universities license their medical breakthroughs for commercial development, are they doing so in socially responsible ways that ensure those treatments reach developing world patients at affordable prices?
- Are universities educating the next generation of global health leaders about the crucial impact that academic institutions can have on global health through their research and licensing activities?
The sub-committee members will be in charge of collecting information for the access portion of the report card following a set of guidelines given by UAEM.
The Innovation Committee
UAEM Western's Innovation Committee focuses on promoting research about neglected diseases, a greatly overlooked yet crucial area of research. Examples of the 17 most important neglected diseases can be found at: http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/diseases/en/
On a global scale, UAEM's Innovation committee is collaborating to develop an online neglected diseases curriculum that we can hopefully make available to all countries, including those most affected by neglected diseases. At Western University, we are also working to establish our own neglected diseases curriculum. We also have many joint WHO-UAEM research internship opportunities available. These are often more suitable for thesis, Masters, or Ph.D. students. Everyone is welcome to help develop our neglected diseases curriculum. Please let us know if you're interested in joining our cause!
The Innovation committee is also engaged in projects such as "Access to Medicines Week", where student campuses work together to draw attention to the need for new approaches to Research and Development (R&D) of medicine. Ultimately, we are striving to implement a needs-driven research system that prevents antimicrobial resistance from becoming an even more serious global health threat than it already is and making sure we aren't late to the game in addressing future global health challenges! For the past couple of years, the innovation committee has also focused on alternative R&D strategies such as the "Take Back Our Medicines" campaign, which targets the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other government funders of biomedical research and development in order to make medicines affordable globally. By leveraging public funding, we can make sure that the fruits of research conducted at universities are accessible to all low-and middle-income countries and available affordably in Canada. No one should be sick because they are poor, or poor because they are sick!
The Empowerment Committee
What does the UAEM Empowerment Committee do?
• Raise awareness for Global Diseases and Global Access Licensing at Western
• Plan events to empower the student body to create change
• Collaborate with other organizations on campus to create a unified student alliance
• Bi-monthly newsletter
• ...and much much more!
Past UAEM Teams
Executive Team 2016-2017
President(s): Michelle Dao Dong and Cheyanne Reed
VP Events/Empowerment: Ankush Vij and Aly Balbaa
VP Innovation: Emmy Sun
VP Access: Michael Lee
Report Card Leaders: Janhavi Patel, Jasleen Dayed, Tiffany Ni
Access/GAL Leaders: Nancy Wu, Nabeel Mansuri, Yasaman Badakhshi
Campaign Core Leaders: Gigi Liu, Yallenni Ilamvaluthy, Sunny Wang
Global Research and Development Leaders: Wenna Deng, Gagan Dhaliwal, Brintha Sivajohan, Christina Blagojevic
First Year Representatives: Jason Liu, Julia Briggs, Sherry Cui, Elenka Yu, Mikayla Hall-Bruce, Jenny Zhu
Finance Leader: Soojie Hong
Promotions Leader: Jailyn Yen
VP Events/Empowerment: Ankush Vij and Aly Balbaa
VP Innovation: Emmy Sun
VP Access: Michael Lee
Report Card Leaders: Janhavi Patel, Jasleen Dayed, Tiffany Ni
Access/GAL Leaders: Nancy Wu, Nabeel Mansuri, Yasaman Badakhshi
Campaign Core Leaders: Gigi Liu, Yallenni Ilamvaluthy, Sunny Wang
Global Research and Development Leaders: Wenna Deng, Gagan Dhaliwal, Brintha Sivajohan, Christina Blagojevic
First Year Representatives: Jason Liu, Julia Briggs, Sherry Cui, Elenka Yu, Mikayla Hall-Bruce, Jenny Zhu
Finance Leader: Soojie Hong
Promotions Leader: Jailyn Yen
Executive Team 2014-2015
Co-Presidents: Raksha Sule & Joey Lee
Co-Directors of Access: Mohammad Shahzad & Gaëlle Groux
TPP Subcommittee Leader (Access Committee): Jayneel Limbachia
Report Card Subcommittee Leader (Access Committee): Michelle Dong
Co-Directors of Innovation: Jennifer Nguyen & Tayler Farrell
Co-Directors of Empowerment: Anita Dabirzadeh & Alex Petrescu
Director of Communications: Cynthia Yeung
Director of Finance: Feiyan Guo
Director of Marketing: Matineh Panah
Director of Outreach: Cheyanne Reed
Co-First Year Representatives: Aly Balbaa & Sowrav Datta
Co-Directors of Access: Mohammad Shahzad & Gaëlle Groux
TPP Subcommittee Leader (Access Committee): Jayneel Limbachia
Report Card Subcommittee Leader (Access Committee): Michelle Dong
Co-Directors of Innovation: Jennifer Nguyen & Tayler Farrell
Co-Directors of Empowerment: Anita Dabirzadeh & Alex Petrescu
Director of Communications: Cynthia Yeung
Director of Finance: Feiyan Guo
Director of Marketing: Matineh Panah
Director of Outreach: Cheyanne Reed
Co-First Year Representatives: Aly Balbaa & Sowrav Datta
