Experiences from teaching at the African Spectral Imaging Network workshop in Togo - and continued collaborations on staining-free malaria diagnostics – Ida-Maria Sintorn & Carolina Wählby

The African Spectral Imaging Network (AFSIN) has as its goal to develop of international standard research activities in the fields of applied spectroscopy and spectral imaging. As part of this goal AFSIN organizes annual workshops for the training of students and young scientists in the areas of optics, photonics and imaging techniques applied to medicine, agriculture and the environment. The workshops have been going on since 2008, focusing e.g. on building instruments for realistic diagnostic tools related to tropical diseases such as malaria, pollution monitoring or natural disasters affecting agriculture and environment, and to use optical diagnostics for quality control and improved crop yield. As part of a collaboration on investigating fast and cheap malaria diagnostics via multispectral imaging (starting already 2013), we were invited to the 2024 version of the workshop to teach image processing and analysis, and support students in their project work. During this seminar, we will share some of what we learned from our two weeks in beautiful Kpalime, and tell you a bit about possibilities and challenges in our continued collaboration in general, and the malaria project in particular.

About Ida-Maria Sintorn

About Carolina Wählby