Located within the University Clinics of Kinshasa behind the Pediatrics building, the Neonatology Research Center (CRN) is built thanks to funding from the Flemish University Council in Belgium (VLIR-UOS). This VLIR-UOS project will be led by Professor Thérèse Biselele in newborns suffering from perinatal asphyxia, which is an inability for the newborn to initiate and maintain breathing at birth, resulting in either death during the neonatal period or survival with a neurodevelopmental disorder in early childhood. This project, which represents the first research of the CRN, is a randomized study on 2-iminobiotin, which is a vitamin B9 agonist and inhibitor of nitric oxide (NO) synthase, which plays a key role in brain injury during perinatal asphyxia and therefore in the occurrence of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). The latter is responsible for 20% of deaths in the neonatal period and later, neurological disabilities. 2-iminobiotin has been the subject of several experimental studies in rats and pigs. Clinical studies have also been conducted in adults with cardiac arrest or after a stroke in the West. But also in newborns suffering from perinatal asphyxia in the Netherlands and Turkey. The Neonatal Research Center is inaugurating its activities with the study on 2-iminobiotin. We believe that it constitutes the starting point for many other research projects to come.

We take this opportunity to thank the Lord our God, Author of all grace, for granting us this project, which has followed the VLIR project selection process. This is an opportunity to thank VLIR for the trust placed in our University and in ourselves. We also express our gratitude to our Promoter at KU Leuven, Professor Gunnar Naulaers, and to the company Neurophyxia, the manufacturer of 2-iminobiotin, with whom we wrote the project. We would like to make a special mention of the Rector of the University of Kinshasa, Professor Jean-Marie Kayembe Ntumba, for having engaged the institution in this project.

Thanks to the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Professor Roger Mbungu Mwimba, who is supporting us in this project.

We would like to thank the Management of the University Clinics of Kinshasa, which welcomed the project, provided a space for its implementation and invested in cleaning up the environment around the neonatology research center.

Our gratitude to the Head of the Department of Pediatrics for her support and promptness in assisting us in this center, which honors the Department of Pediatrics. To the entire Neonatology team, we have the heavy responsibility not only to maintain this heritage, but also to work harder to fulfill our mission: teaching, newborn care, and research that meets the needs of our populations.