Research and Training Programs

Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH) and collaborators Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) and Bayero University (BUK) have partnered to establish the Vanderbilt-Nigeria Research Ethics Training Program (V-NET). The program is a comprehensive initiative that encompasses curricular development, didactic coursework, skills development, mentoring, and practicum experiences designed to build capacity for the ethical design, conduct, and oversight of genetic and genomic research in Nigeria.

The Pediatric Anesthesia Training in Africa (PATA) program aims to improve perioperative care for children by building education capacity for pediatric anesthesia training at teaching hospitals across the continent. The primary objective of PATA is to support the development of five new pediatric anesthesia fellowship programs in five African countries. Currently, PATA supports fellowships in Nigeria, Zambia, and Uganda. 

Fellowship applications are open for this NIH collaborative research training grant focused on creating a cohort of highly skilled Nigerian biostatisticians with the capacity to lead and supervise high-level biostatistics activities for HIV research studies in West Africa.Focus includes hands-on biostatistics training. Trainees will take biostatistics courses, become members of a team of biostatisticians doing HIV research at Vanderbilt, and will be assigned to HIV research projects using data from Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH).

In 2020, the SPRING research team completed a multicenter phase III randomized controlled trial fo

Status epilepticus (SE) is the most common serious neurological emergency among children worldwide. In the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) of sub-Saharan Africa, the burden of childhood SE-associated mortality and morbidity appears to be especially high. However, the phenotypes of childhood SE, clinical predictors of SE-associated mortality and of SE-associated neurodevelopmental morbidity, and genomic predictors of SE, SE-associated mortality and neurodevelopmental morbidity have not been well-characterized in this region.

About V-RAMP 

Young people living with HIV (Y-PLWH) have poor adherence to antiretroviral therapy and engagement in HIV care, making HIV the leading cause of death for African adolescents. Depression and psychological distress are much more common among Y-PLWH than in the general population, and are associated with significantly worse adherence to care and treatment when compared to Y-PLWH without these co-morbid conditions. Thus, untreated depression and severe psychological distress are important contributors to poor HIV outcomes in this population.

Principal Investigator(s):  Muktar Aliyu, M.D., M.P.H., Dr.P.H. William Wester, M.D., M.P.H.

Principal Investigator: Edwin Trevathan, MD, MPH

The scale-up of global antiretroviral therapy (ART) represents an unparalleled global health success story, leading to impressive overall reductions in HIV-related morbidity and mortality. However, adolescents and young adults (AYA), especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, have largely been left out of this story. While AIDS-related deaths declined by 30% for adults from 2005-2012, they increased by 50% among AYA over the same period, making AIDS the leading cause of death among African youth. AYA living with HIV perform poorly across the entire care continuum.

The Vanderbilt-Nigeria Building Research Capacity in HIV/Non-communicable Diseases (V-BRCH) Program builds capacity of Nigerian investigators to successfully initiate and implement high-quality clinical trials in HIV-associated non-communicable diseases.