# Enabling Infectious Disease Research Capacity in the Peruvian Amazon

> **NIH NIH D43** · TULANE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA · 2020 · $246,101

## Abstract

7. Project Summary/Abstract
Peru is rapidly increasing in stature in public health research, and many successful Peruvian-US research
teams have expanded research capacity through training grants based in major universities in Lima. Many of
these partnerships have satellite activities to study tropical diseases in Iquitos, the major city in the Peruvian
Amazon, but these research and capacity building activities have largely bypassed academic institutions in
Iquitos. This D43 training grant is specifically designed to address and correct this disparity, offering a
collaborative research training program in partnership with the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonia Peruana
(UNAP; National University of the Peruvian Amazon), the largest health education institution in the region. Our
goal is to expand the local workforce of highly trained professionals with public health and infectious diseases
research skills, which we propose to achieve by forming a collaborative Master’s degree program based at
UNAP for six competitively selected health professionals, leading to a Master’s degree in Public Health from
UNAP and a Certificate in International Research in Infectious Diseases from the consortium training program.
This intensive, mentored training program with both north-south and south-south training components will be
led by faculty from four collaborating institutions (UNAP, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia [the leading
biomedical research university in Peru, located in Lima], Tulane, and Johns Hopkins). The program will be fully
integrated with the standard Peruvian training program for health professionals, allowing for trainees to
complete their academic and field service requirements while benefiting from the intensive training during
programed gap periods and during the standard two-year MPH program at UNAP, while adding less than six
months to their total training period. The majority of the training will be conducted locally at UNAP through
training modules and online components, although three months of the initial training period will be carried out
at Johns Hopkins as part of the Summer Institute of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Summer Institute of
Tropical Medicine and Public Health. We will supplement the two-year MPH program at UNAP with
complementary, short-term training modules led by Tulane, Johns Hopkins, and UPCH faculty that will be open
to all MPH students in the UNAP program, expanding the impact of the training program to approximately 80
additional trainees. Working closely with UNAP faculty, we will integrate new program content into the existing
MPH curriculum, providing sustainable, ongoing benefits for future UNAP MPH classes. MPH trainees will
conclude their training by taking a leading role in writing and assembling a CONCYTEC proposal (Consejo
Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología, e Innovación Tecnológica [Nacional Counsel on Science, Technology, and
Technological Innovation], the premier scientific funding agen...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9886302
- **Project number:** 5D43TW010913-03
- **Recipient organization:** TULANE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA
- **Principal Investigator:** Margaret N Kosek
- **Activity code:** D43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $246,101
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-04-11 → 2023-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9886302

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9886302, Enabling Infectious Disease Research Capacity in the Peruvian Amazon (5D43TW010913-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9886302. Licensed CC0.

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