The Interdisciplinarian

A warm welcome back to The Interdisciplinarian!

After a short break, and finishing of a master’s degree by writer Sofia, the blog is back! First with this podcast, where Sofia interviews medical anthropologist, medical student and access to medicines advocate Sarai Keestra. Sarai is an exemplary ‘interdisciplinarian’, though this interview draws most on her experiences working with civil society organisations such as Universities Allied for Essential Medicines and People’s Health Movement. Whilst they do not represent these organisations nor speak on their behalf in this conversation, both Sofia and Sarai use their advocacy backgrounds to deep dive into access to medicines, university technology transfer, and equitable research and development in this podcast, and frame these topics in the context of the pursuit for justice in Global Health. In addition, part of the conversation includes a special focus on the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent vaccine development, using this as a case study in topical access to medicines issues relevant not only to the medical profession, but also to the wider public.

Tune into this one-hour podcast if you’d like to learn more about access to medicines, a topic at the intersection of basic science research, clinical medicine, intellectual property law, business and more! Equal parts informative and inspiring, Sarai’s words are not to be missed.

And if you’d like to learn more, check out Universities Allied for Essential Medicines at https://www.uaem.org, or email Sarai directly if you have a specific question. Here is her email address: s.m.keestra@amsterdamumc.nl.

Thank you for listening & we hope you enjoy this conversation!