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INFORMATION FOR

    Kenya

    Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH)

    Site Institution: Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH)
    Research Areas: HIV Continuum of Care, Implementation Science, Gender, Youth Specific Prevention
    Site Description:
    Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) was established in 1901 as a national teaching and referral hospital and a medical research site. It is the largest teaching and referral hospital in the Kenya health system and has a wide spectrum of sub-specialties. The hospital has 22 specialized outpatient clinics, 50 inpatient wards and 24 theatres.

    The Department of Pediatrics, where Dr. Irene Inwani (mentor and site leader) is affiliated, is one of the most dynamic departments in the University of Nairobi, College of Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Kenyatta National Hospital. The Department is committed to achieving excellence in training and research with the aim of improving pediatric health provision in Kenya.

    Other features of this site include:
    • KNH Training, Research and Innovation center provides specialized training in health and facilitating research and innovation in the Hospital.
    • KNH hosts the College of Health Sciences and the Kenya Medical Training College. The College of Health Sciences is the leading tertiary healthcare training center in Kenya and the East Africa region. It houses the Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (UNITID), the Centre for HIV and AIDS Prevention and Research (CHIVPR) and the East African Kidney Institute (EAKI)
    Current research projects and areas of interest include:
    • County Ownership and Networks to maintain Nairobi Epidemic Control
      • Grant No: PEPFAR 6 NU2GGH002332-01 and CDC
      • Goals: To implement and expand high quality, sustainable, and comprehensive HIV prevention, care, and treatment programs in Nairobi County
    • The high volume of patients in specialized clinics offers opportunities for research in prevention, treatment and management of infectious diseases including HIV as well as non-communicable diseases.
    • As a national referral hospital, there is a wealth of data that can be utilized to inform and improve health care provision within and outside of Kenya.
    • The site excels in research related to the continuum of HIV care, among other conditions, within an implementation science framework.

    KNH Mentors

    Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)

    Site Institution: Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)
    Research Areas: Malaria & Vector-Borne Diseases, Infectious Diseases & Antimicrobial Resistance, Genomic Epidemiology, and One Health & Epidemic Preparedness

    Site Description: The Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) is a government institution established in 1979 to undertake human health research. KEMRI currently ranks as one of the leading centers of excellence in health research in Africa and globally, with a mission to improve human health and quality of life through research, capacity building, innovation, and service delivery.

    KEMRI has a robust research infrastructure comprising fifteen (15) specialized research centers with state-of-the-art facilities and laboratories distributed across Kenya, including sites in Nairobi, Kisumu, Kilifi, Kericho, Kwale, Eldoret, and Busia. The Institute maintains an independent Scientific and Ethics Review Unit (SERU) to ensure ethical conduct in all human subjects research, an Animal Facility supporting laboratory and diagnostic research, and a Sample Management and Repository Facility (SMARF) for biobanking. Seven scientific programs span KEMRI's research portfolio — covering Infectious and Parasitic Diseases, Public Health and Health Systems, Biotechnology, Sexual/Reproductive/Adolescent and Child Health, Non-Communicable Diseases, Natural Products and Drug Development, and One Health — each overseen by the Office of Director, Research & Development.

    Research areas relevant to GHES include Epidemic Preparedness & One Health, Environmental Health & Injuries, HIV, TB & Syndemics, and Malaria & Vector-Borne Diseases. Trainees participate in multidisciplinary collaborative research projects involving epidemiological and laboratory methods, and engage in data analysis, manuscript writing, and presentation of research findings.

    Other features of this site include:

    • The KEMRI Graduate School (KGS) is the university arm of KEMRI, offering specialized postgraduate degrees at the Master's, Doctoral, and Postdoctoral levels. Since 2003, KGS has enrolled more than 2,000 students, providing a fertile training environment for early-career scientists in health research and innovation.
    • The Office of Scientific Programs, Partnerships and Grant Management (OSPPGM) provides comprehensive grant management support from pre- to post-award, offering fellows institutional infrastructure for research administration.
    • KEMRI has extensive experience collaborating with US-based institutions and will provide protected mentorship time, visa support letters, and dedicated workspace within relevant research departments for GHES fellows.

    KEMRI Mentors

    • Serap Aksoy, PhD

      US Mentor

      Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases); Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health

      Professor Aksoy is a tropical medicine researcher whose work focuses on the epidemiology of insect transmitted (vector borne) and zoonotic diseases.  Her research has been on tsetse flies and the pathogenic parasites they transmit that cause highly neglected and fatal diseases of humans in Africa, known as Sleeping Sickness. Her laboratory focuses on deciphering the vector-parasite molecular dialogue and parasite development during the transmission process with the ultimate goal of identifying novel targets of interference and developing transmission blocking vaccines to reduce disease.  Her fundamental and interdisciplinary work on tsetse and its microbial symbionts has identified key principles that shape host-microbe interactions. Her studies with tsetse's mutualistic microbes identified nutritional contributions that facilitate female fecundity and mediate host immune system development. Her studies with tsetse's commensal microbiota led to a novel biological method, coined as paratransgenesis, in which anti-parasitic molecules are synthesized in the beneficial gut microbes, thus making the gut environment inhospitable for disease causing parasites. Ability to spread such modified microbes into natural insect populations is being explored to reduce disease transmission as a novel biological method.Dr. Aksoy maintains collaborative research activities with Yale researchers as well as with multiple universities and research institutes in Africa. Their studies in Kenya and Uganda investigate the epidemiology of Sleeping Sickness disease, with a focus on understanding the major drivers that sustain disease transmission, as well as on population genetics of flies and parasites and their microbiota. She initiated and led a large international consortium that eventually sequenced the genome of six tsetse fly species. This effort vastly expanded molecular knowledge and genomic resources on this neglected disease vector, and collectively expanded research capacity in bioinformatics and functional biology in many laboratories in sub-Sahara Africa. As the co-editor in Chief of the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases between 2007-2020, she has been a major voice for building research and publication capacity for global neglected tropical diseases.  Throughout her professional career, Aksoy has been an advocate of and innovator in Global Health; served as a dedicated mentor to students and scientists in the US and in Africa, China, Italy and Turkey helping to prepare the next generation of leaders in the fields of epidemiology and zoonotic disease control.
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    • Kacey C. Ernst, MPH, PhD

      US Mentor

      Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Arizona

      Kacey Ernst is an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist and Program Director of Epidemiology at the University of Arizona, College of Public Health. Dr. Ernst graduated from the University of Michigan MPH (2001) and PhD (2006) programs in Epidemiology. She holds a BA in Chemistry from Lawrence University (1997). She has held positions in applied public health at the local and state level prior to entering academia. Dr. Ernst joined the faculty at the University of Arizona in 2008. Her primary research interest is to identify the social and ecological determinants of vectorborne disease transmission. She works collaboratively with entomologists, social scientists, and ecologists to quantify the relationships in these complex human-vector-pathogen-environmental relationships. She has a particular interest in understanding how climate change and other anthropogenic changes alter the dynamics of transmission in emerging areas. Much of her work has focused on Aedes aegypti in the US Southwest and northern Mexico and on malaria control dynamics in western Kenya. She focuses on identifying these relationships to improve prevention and control strategies, including the development of early warning systems. She has a commitment to community and public engagement in vector control with project funding from Gates Foundation and the CDC to better understand how to motivate individuals and communities to participate in control strategies. She has worked collaboratively with the University of West Indies since 2009 to deliver the MS in Epidemiology as the Infectious Disease Epidemiology module instructor/ advisor. She has worked with partners at the Jamaican Ministry of Health and UWI to conduct research on Aeaegypti and its arboviruses, specifically chikungunya.
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    • Desiree LaBeaud, MD, MS

      US Mentor

      Professor of Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases, Stanford University; Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment; Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health of the Environmental Social Sciences

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    • Rosemary Sang, MSc, PhD

      Research Site Mentor

      Principal Research Scientist in the Arbovirology, Kenya Medical Research Institute