Kim Mwamelo, MPH '17, leads the TDI graduation procession at Dartmouth's 2017 Commencement ceremony.
Tuberculosis is the leading cause of death among persons with HIV infection in Tanzania. Clinical and operational research to improve prevention and treatment of both adult and pediatric HIV-TB is a defined national priority but there is no specifically designated and staffed institute to plan, coordinate and conduct such research. The objective of TRIM-TB is to provide the training to develop a premier HIV-TB clinical and operational research institute at Muhimibili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS). MUHAS leadership, the Tanzanian National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Program (NTLP) and former Fogarty trainees have all contributed to planning the new institute.
The program will consolidate the expertise of past Fogarty trainees with a new focused plan to train the requisite professionals to fully staff TRIM-TB. The institute will be based a new office complex at MUHAS with additional staffing located at the NTLP. An initial faculty core at MUHAS (Director, Associate Director) will be augmented by the addition of trainees who will complete the following degrees determined to be necessary for providing the necessary research expertise for the institute: 3 MPH degrees at Dartmouth, 3 MPH degrees at MUHAS, 1 master’s degree at BU (pharmacology) and 2 doctoral degrees at BU (epidemiology, public health).
Additional short and medium term training in ethics, good clinical practice and HIV-TB research methods will be provided for investigators. Advanced TB microbiology and TB immunology training will be provided for research microbiologists who will staff the TRIM-TB core laboratory. Pilot grant funding will be available for HIV-TB research projects and investigators will coordinate efforts thru monthly research seminars at MUHAS linked by teleconference to Dartmouth and BU. Defined performance measures focused on development of independent HIV-TB research capacity have been developed and will be monitored.
An extensive candidate pool will be recruited from health science students and at MUHAS, prior DBU AITRP trainees, Fogarty alumni, public presentations and focused advertising. Performance sites for research will include adult and pediatric DarDar Programs, NTLP clinical sites, and the Fogarty African Consortium on Tuberculosis (FACT, developed by the DBU AITRP). TRIM-TB faculty have extensive experience in HIV-TB research, actively funded research projects, and wide experience training and mentoring junior colleagues. An expert Training Advisory Committee will oversee the program. After 5 years TRIM-TB will have set HIV-TB research priorities for Tanzania and have secured independent funding for research on these priorities.
The overall goal of the Dartmouth/Penn Research Ethics Training and Program Development for Tanzania (DPRET) is to establish new and strengthen existing expertise in research bioethics among research scientists, faculty, health care providers and other professionals at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) and throughout Tanzania. This goal will be achieved through graduate level degree training for Tanzanian scholars at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), intensive practicum experiences at Dartmouth and MUHAS, and the establishment of a graduate training program in bioethics in Tanzania.
The specific aims are:
The overall goal of this collaborative training program is to strengthen and expand the capacity of Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) to better manage their portfolio of existing and future research grants. Dartmouth College (DC) and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) will assist MUHAS in this goal by providing training and mentorship to its new Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) through intensive residency internships at DC and USCF, in-country short-term training programs and distance learning.
The specific aims are:
Fogarty Africa Consortium on Tuberculosis (FACT) was created in 2010 as a collaboration between the Dartmouth-BU AITRP (Tanzania) and the Georgia-Case Western Reserve AITRP (Uganda). The goal of FACT is to connect current and former Fogarty trainees from East Africa in a south-south research network and to develop priorities for clinical, epidemiologic and programmatic tuberculosis research in the region.
The first annual one day research meeting was held in Dar es Salaam in 2010 and the second annual meeting in 2011 in Kampala. The program includes research lectures, study design discussions and a poster session. Annual meetings alternate between Dar and Kampala, and since 2012 has expanded to include other East African Fogarty trainees.
The overall goal of our project is to establish new and strengthen existing expertise in IRB management and training among research scientists, faculty, health care providers and other professionals at MUHAS and throughout Tanzania. Dartmouth has a long-standing collaboration with the MUHAS Research Ethics Committee (REC) and this grant will allow us to assist the REC to the next step in development. Further, Dartmouth has established research and training collaborations in Tanzania on which to build innovative IRB support programs.
The specific aims are to:
The Dartmouth-Boston University Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program (AITRP) was established in 2003 to provide HIV and tuberculosis research training to physicians, scientists and other health care professionals from Tanzania.
The principal collaborating partner in Tanzania has been the Muhmibili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), and additional collaborations have been established with the National Institute for Medical Research and the Ministry of Health. Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, The Dartmouth Institute, and the Boston University School of Public Health offer masters and doctoral level degree training in basic science research, epidemiology, health sciences research, and pharmacology.
In Tanzania the Dartmouth-BU Fogarty program sponsors selected degree programs at MUHAS and offers 1-3 day conferences and workshops on issues on HIV and tuberculosis. Short term training in a variety of HIV- and TB-related topics is also offered. A south-south research collaboration known as the Fogarty Africa Consortium on Tuberculosis (FACT) was established in 2010 in collaboration with the Georgia-Case Western Reserve AITRP in Uganda.