Research and Training Programs

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is marked by chronic hemolysis, systemic endothelial dysfunction, inflammation, and vascular occlusion, leading to severe pain, multi-organ damage, and a median lifespan of 48 years in high-income countries. Young adults with progressive heart, lung, or kidney damage are at heightened risk for premature death.

Anemia, defined by low hemoglobin content in the blood, is common in pregnancy, impairing the health of the mother as well as babies. Although the condition can easily be treated with currently available supplements or infusions, anemia is detected too late or not at all.

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 Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH), Hanoi Medical University (HMU), and the Vietnam National Cancer Institute (VNCI) have partnered on a new training program from the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health. The Vanderbilt-Vietnam Genetic Epidemiology Training Program (V2- GENE) is an initiative to train scholars in the genetic epidemiology of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). 

In partnership with the University of Zambia (UNZA) and the Zambia Cancer Diseases Hospital (CDH), the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, the Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center, and the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center received $1.3 million for a five-year training grant funded by the National Cancer Institute to support cancer epidemiology research in Zambia.

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

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.

The UNZA-Vanderbilt Training Partnership for HIV-Nutrition-Metabolic Research (UVP-1) and the UNZA-Vanderbilt Partnership for HIV-NCD Research (UVP-2) continue a longstanding training collaboration between the University of Zambia School of Medicine/University Teaching Hospital (UNZA/UTH), Vanderbilt University (VU) and the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH).

The primary objective is to implement a personalized approach to curative therapies for children and adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) to maximize benefits while minimizing adverse outcomes. Current efforts to understand long-term health outcomes after these therapies are limited. The focus on initial treatment success recalls developments in pediatric oncology during the 1980s, where effective therapies eventually led to increased risks of organ dysfunction and malignancies.