The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is renowned for its research, postgraduate studies and continuing education in public and global health. We have an annual research income of more than £180 million and are one of the highest-rated research institutions in the UK. Founded in 1899 at the London Docks, LSHTM is now based in Bloomsbury, where it has two main sites at Keppel Street and Tavistock Place, and additional sites in The Gambia and Uganda. Today, our staff, students and alumni work in government, academia, international agencies and health services across the world.The school was founded on October 2, 1899 by Sir Patrick Manson as the London School of Tropical Medicine after the Parsi philanthropist Bomanjee Dinshaw Petit made a donation of £6,666. It was initially located at the Albert Dock Seamen's Hospital in the London Docklands. Just prior to this teaching in tropical medicine had been commenced in 1899 at the Extramural school at Edinburgh and even earlier at London's Livingstone College founded in 1893 by Charles F. Harford-Battersby (1865–1925). Before giving lectures at St George's Hospital, London, in 1895, Livingstone College afforded Manson his first opportunity to teach courses in tropical medicine. Manson's early career was as a physician in the Far East where he deduced the correct etiology of filariasis, a parasitic vector based disease, transmitted through the bite of a mosquito. On his return to London, he was appointed Medical Advisor to the Colonial Office. He strongly believed that physicians should be trained in tropical medicine to treat British colonial administrators and others working throughout Britain's tropical empire. He also encouraged and mentored Ronald Ross during this period to uncover the correct etiology of malaria, which Ross subsequently discovered in 1897, winning the Nobel Prize for his efforts. The original school was established as part of the Seamen's Hospital Society.In 1902, the benefactor Petit wrote the following about the institution in a letter to Sir Francis Lovell (Dean of the school), quoted in The Times. This institution, whilst according ample scope to students of diseases that well nigh devastate the East, will be the means of bringing the Western and Eastern minds together to afford help to the suffering East, and thus cementing that union of hearts.Among the school's early achievements were discoveries by George Carmichael Low, who proved filariasis is spread by mosquito bites, and Aldo Castellani, who discovered trypanosomes in the cerebral fluid of those affected by sleeping sickness. Experiments were also conducted by the school's faculty which provided proof that mosquitoes act as the vector in the spread of malaria.Our School has an international presence and collaborative ethos, and is uniquely placed to help shape health policy and translate research findings into tangible impact. We have 3,000 staff conducting research in over 100 countries, and more than 4,000 students — all working with a collective purpose to improve health worldwide.The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is renowned for its research, postgraduate studies and continuing education in public and global health. The School has an international presence and collaborative ethos, and is uniquely placed to help shape health policy and translate research findings into tangible impact.MissionOur mission is to improve health and health equity in the UK and worldwide; working in partnership to achieve excellence in public and global health research, education and translation of knowledge into policy and practice.Research income has grown to more than £180 million per year from national and international funding sources including UK government and research councils, the European Union, the Wellcome Trust, Gates Foundation and other philanthropic sources. Our diverse research talents, skills and experience underpin our position as a leader in public and global health. These range from the molecular to the global, the theoretical to the applied, the analytical to the political. Our staff are conducting research in more than 100 countries.The school moved to its present location near the intersection of Gower Street and Keppel Street in 1929. A competition to design a new school building to be sited in Gower Street, was held involving five architects, all experienced in laboratory design and construction. This was won in 1925 by Morley Horder and Verner Rees who located the main entrance in Keppel Street. The foundation stone was laid in 1926 by Neville Chamberlain, then Minister of Health, and the completed building was opened in 1929 by the Prince of Wales, later to become Edward VIII. The purchase of the site and the cost of a new building was made possible through a gift of $2m from the Rockefeller Foundation. The school also has a secondary site on Tavistock Place to the east.The Faculty of Public Health and Policy aims to improve global health through research, teaching and the provision of advice in the areas of health policy, health systems and services, and individual, social and environmental influences on health. Interests and activities embrace the health needs of people living in countries at all levels of development. The school has the largest numbers of research active staff in the areas of epidemiology, public health and health services research in the UK. The Faculty of Public Health and Policy has over 220 members of staff, including epidemiologists, public health physicians, economists, policy analysts, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, psychologists, statisticians and mathematicians. The Faculty's research programmes, with an annual spend of over £7m, focus on public health problems of importance both globally and in the UK, and build on an extensive network of collaborations.The research programmes exploit multidisciplinary and multi-method approaches, generate new knowledge for specific contexts and test transferability to different settings, and engage with policymakers and providers of health care to ensure research is relevant and translated into practice.The Faculty hosts School Centres in the areas of History in Public Health, Research on Drugs and Health Behaviours, Spatial Analysis in Public Health, Global Change and Health, Health of Societies in Transition (ECOHOST), and Gender Violence and Health. In addition, staff participate in Centres based in other departments, notably the Malaria Centre and the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease.
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