CONNECTIONS NEWSLETTER
In this edition:
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Greetings to NYS-ITRP alumni and faculty-
Attached, please find a holiday card and a new issue of “Connections” from the NYS-ITRP. Clearly the most important challenge we have had over the past year has been the war in Ukraine. I continue to be awed by the bravery and ingenuity of our Ukrainian faculty and alumni.
Attached, please find a holiday card and a new issue of “Connections” from the NYS-ITRP. Clearly the most important challenge we have had over the past year has been the war in Ukraine. I continue to be awed by the bravery and ingenuity of our Ukrainian faculty and alumni.
During this past year I was able to restart travel to both Georgia and Kazakhstan after a lapse of almost 3 years. As detailed in our bulletin, I had the opportunity meet with affiliated Georgian and Kazakh University leadership and reinvigorate our training programs. Highlights of this past year include the initiation of an implementation science course in Tbilisi and the initiation of training on the impact of noncommunicable diseases on people living with HIV in both Georgia and Kazakhstan.
Finally, I was gratified to be able to provide a mentor for a “second generation” researcher here at Downstate. Anna Tisler is a PhD candidate at Tartu University in Estonia, and a trainee of Anneli Uusküla, a graduate of the NYS-ITRP in 2003. As you can see from the video embedded in Connections, Anna is spending a year with us here in Brooklyn on an important research project.
Let me also take a moment to remind you that we have a weekly HIV/infectious diseases research conference at noon (US Eastern Time) on Thursdays. We will continue to send the links and hope some of you can join us. Stay safe and best wishes for the holidays and New Year.
click to enlarge Holiday Card.
Jack A. DeHovitz, MD, MPH, MHCDS
Director
New York State International Training and Research Program
Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
Georgia
Visit with the Rector of
Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
On July, 4th, 2022, Drs. DeHovitz and Djibuti (Principal Investigators on the Strategic Training Partnership to End AIDS in Georgia Fogarty funded HIV Research Program) met with the Rector of Tbilisi State University, Dr. George Sharvashidze. We were accompanied by the Dean of the Medical Faculty, Dr. Dmitry Kordzaia. We discussed the initial success of the first cohort of 4 trainees of the doctoral program in public health and the plans for initiating an implementation Science Course on campus in October, 2022. We also discussed our plans to admit 6 students into the second and final year of recruitment of the program. We agreed to continue to keep University leadership aware of the progress of our program.
Georgia
New Course Launches at Tbilisi State University
SPH: Implementation Research on HIV/AIDS
From October 11 to October 31, the Partnership for Research and Action for Health (PRAH), through its current grant supported by the Fogarty International Center, conducted the three-week short-term training course, “Implementation Research on HIV/AIDS.”
The goal of the course is to teach students about implementation science, specifically how evidence-based public health interventions can be developed and integrated into practice. This course covers the teaches the essential skills and methods to overcome barriers to the development, implementation, sustainability, and dissemination of evidence-based public health programs and policies. The course used a case analysis approach to present concrete examples of the application of relevant methods in the real world, with a particular focus on HIV/AIDS.
The course was delivered by PRAH/Tbilisi State University (TSU) affiliated faculty with in-person and online participation of US faculty from New York University (NYU), State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University (SUNY-DMC) and New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute (NYSDOH-AI):
In-person classes were conducted at Tbilisi State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. Overall, 13 participants attended the course, including 4 doctoral students from the first trainee cohort, 8 short-term trainees (public health researchers and professionals working in HIV field) and one doctoral student from the
Fogarty /NYS-ITRP program in Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan
New Rector of Kazakh National Medical
University Meets with New York State International,
Training and Research Program (NYS-ITRP) Leadership
In June 2022, Jack DeHovitz, MD, MPH met with the new Rector of Asfendiyarov Kazakh National Medical University (KNMU), Marat Shoranov, MD, PhD (former First Deputy Minister of the Kazakh Ministry of Health). Dr. DeHovitz and Zhamilya Nugmanova, MD, Professor, Division of HIV Infection at KNMU, and Fogarty grant MPI, presented the grant goals of the renewed Fogarty-funded HIV Research Training grant to Dr. Shoranov.
Since 2016, Fogarty-funded New York State International Training and Research Program (NYS-ITRP) has collaborated with KNMU to train faculty and develop HIV research training capacity at its School of Public Health. The grant was renewed for another five years in 2021.
In their conversations, Dr. Shoranov, a graduate of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, expressed his appreciation of NYS-ITRP training goals to enhance KNMU research capacity. Dr Shoranov also emphasized his extensive experience in clinical research (urology) and public health (as Director of National Center of Healthcare Development, Chair of Healthcare Department of Eastern Kazakhstan Region). These experiences further underscored the importance of improving epidemiology and biostatistics training at KNMU and implementing a contemporary curriculum for students at all levels.
As NYS-ITRP continues to support building a foundation of research expertise at KNMU, Dr. Shoranov expressed his hope that a new generation of KNMU graduates and faculty would be able to advance research not only in HIV related areas but also in public health and medicine.
In their meetings, Dr. Shoranov further expressed his gratitude to NYS-ITRP in supporting his efforts to raise the visibility of KNMU as a leading medical university in Kazakhstan and the Central Asian region. He was hopeful that the KNMU-SUNY collaboration will strengthen in years to come.
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Kazakhstan
Georgia
Supplement awards
to study HIV and Aging
Pictured: Dr Gustafson teaching the staff at the Almaty AIDS Center
In September 2023, our research training grants in Georgia and Kazakhstan received a Fogarty International Center (FIC) research supplement for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in HIV. Both studies will investigate key markers in aging adults with HIV. In Georgia, the grant was received by Partnership for Research and Action for Health (PRAH, Mamuka Djibuti, PI); in Kazakhstan the supplement was awarded to the New York State International Training and Research Program (NYS-ITRP, Jack DeHovitz and Zhamilya Nugmanova, MPIs). In Georgia the study, taking place at a research site in Tbilisi, will focus on vascular contributors to cognitive impairments and dementia in people living with HIV (PLWH). Similarly, in Kazakhstan the research focus will be on the interplay and characteristics of comorbid communicable and the major global NCD, cardiovascular disease, in PLWH over 40; this study will take place at Almaty AIDS Center in Almaty.
Studies on comorbidities in aging and dementia have not been well-characterized in Eastern European and Central Asian populations of PLWH. Both grants will support the training of an early-stage investigator as well as build HIV research training capacity at the Schools of Public Health at Tbilisi State Medical University and Kazakh National Medical University. From Georgia, the investigator is Davit Baliashvili, MD, PhD; from Kazakhstan, the investigator is Nursultan Nurzhigitov, MD. Study protocols will be conducted with additional direction from Deborah Gustafson, PhD, who is Professor of Neurology and Director of the Neuroepidemiology Program at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. Dr. Gustafson is also the MPI of the NIH-funded, multicenter MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study (mwccs.org), Brooklyn Clinical Research Site, and co-chairs the Aging Working Group, leading in cognition and frailty. She is the current chair of The International Society of Vascular Behavioural and Cognitive Disorders.
Ukraine
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NYS-ITRP Activities continue
in a time of war
Konstantin Dumchev, MD, Scientific Director at the Ukrainian Institute on Public Health Policy (UIPHP)
We’re all aware of the terrible events in Ukraine which began on February 24th of this year. Our colleagues and alumni have continued to teach, provide care and conduct research under very difficult circumstances. On April 22, Konstantin Dumchev, MD, Scientific Director at the Ukrainian Institute on Public Health Policy (UIPHP) gave an inspiring address (remote of course) to our first SUNY Global Research Symposium, summarized in a previous bulletin . Dr, Dumchev, one of our key collaborators for NYS-ITRP activities in Ukraine, spoke of how even in the relentless face of war, the critical activities of HIV and substance use treatment delivery and related research continue to reach these marginalized populations. He gave an updated talk on July 25th to the Fogarty International Center HIV Research Training Network meeting, a symposium which included the global leadership of most of the Fogarty HIV Research Training grants. He specifically updated the results of our COVID-HIV supplement and the progress of that grant even under the challenging circumstances of the war.
As noted, UIPHP continues to implement its Fogarty-supported supplement grant on the measuring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on HIV treatment. Some of our alumni and collaborators have published studies that characterize the impact of these geopolitical conflicts on substance use treatment. Dr. Dumchev with several other alumni trainees (Tetyana Vasylyeva, Alyona Mazhnaya, Sergii Antoniak) co-authored an important review outlining the European response to displaced Ukrainians with HIV.[1] Anna Meteliuk coauthored an important publication highlighting the challenges in accessing substance use treatment during the war.[2]
This fall, our other institutional partner in Ukraine, the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s School of Public Health was able to launch a new Master’s in Public Health degree as a virtual offering, with several of our alumni trainees continuing as instructors in epidemiology, research methods, biostatistics, and health promotion. In addition, our alumni trainees play a vital role of continuing HIV treatment services in their positions at the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, US CDC and PEPFAR, and NGOs (eg, Alliance for Public Health, I-TECH, and USAID-supported Health Reform) either in Ukraine or farther west in Europe.
We are incredibly proud of our alumni trainees, partners and colleagues in Ukraine who continue to persevere in their provision of care and research for people living with HIV.
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[1] Vasylyev M, Skrzat-Klapaczyńska A, Bernardino JI, Săndulescu O, Gilles C, Libois A, Curran A, Spinner CD, Rowley D, Bickel M, Aichelburg MC, Nozza S, Wensing A, Barber TJ, Waters L, Jordans C, Bramer W, Lakatos B, Tovba L, Koval T, Kyrychenko T, Dumchev K, Buhiichyk V, Smyrnov P, Antonyak S, Antoniak S, Vasylyeva TI, Mazhnaya A, Kowalska J, Bhagani S, Rokx C; European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) Young Investigators (YING). Unified European support framework to sustain the HIV cascade of care for people living with HIV including in displaced populations of war-struck Ukraine. Lancet HIV. 2022 Jun;9(6):e438-e448. doi: 10.1016/S2352-3018(22)00125-4. Epub 2022 May 13.
[2] Altice FL, Bromberg DJ, Dvoriak S, Meteliuk A, Pykalo I, Islam Z, Azbel L, Madden LM. Extending a lifeline to people with HIV and opioid use disorder during the war in Ukraine. Lancet Public Health. 2022 May;7(5):e482-e484. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(22)00083-4. Epub 2022 Mar 28. PMID: 35358424.