University of Virginia - icddr,b Research Unit for Women's and Children's Health Research

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Project Summary We propose that the University of Virginia (UVa) and icddr,b become a Research Unit (RU) within the Global Network for Women's and Children's Health Research. Significance: Mothers and children in Bangladesh and other low-mid income countries suffer disproportionately from maternal and infant malnutrition, neonatal mortality from diarrhea and respiratory infections, vaccine failure and impaired child development. The UVa-icddrb Research Unit (RU) will address these critical needs of women and young children by complementing the existing Network strengths with added scientific expertise in infectious diseases, neurocognitive development, human genetics, maternal-fetal medicine, immunology, and vaccinology. The RU will also provide extraordinary access to rural and urban populations for clinical trials. Investigators: The RU Principal Investigator (PI) William Petri and Senior Foreign Investigator (SFI) Rashidul Haque have for 25 years co-led multidisciplinary teams studying maternal-child, with over 100 co-publications and eight on-going clinical trials or observational studies. They are joined at icddr,b by a multidisciplinary team of F. Qadri (Immunology), K. Zaman (Vaccinology), F. Tofail (Child Development), M. Billah and S. El Arifeen (Maternal and Child Health), T. Ahmed (infant nutrition) and at UVa by C. Chisholm (ob/gyn) and R. Sinkin (neonatology). Innovation: The RU has a long history of innovative studies and expertise in maternal-child health, including the impact of infection and inflammation on child neurocognitive development, role of airborne pollutants on respiratory infection, function of gut damage in oral vaccine failure and malnutrition. Approach: The RU will work within the Network to promote innovative studies that have the potential to lead to actionable and sustainable improvement in maternal and child health through the partnership of the RU with the government of Bangladesh (manifest through the worldwide implementation of oral rehydration solution, discovered at icddr,b and adoption nationwide of the Matlab model of community based care). Environment: The RU has unparalleled multidisciplinary strength, laboratory facilities and access to urban and rural populations of mothers and children. The icddr,b is one of the foremost global health institutes in the developing world with over 200 active clinical trials/protocols. The UVa Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health is the largest research unit at UVa with over $20 million in annual grant support and over two dozen active clinical protocols. The quarter of a century UVa-icddrb collaboration and unique and complementary expertise promises to bring unparalleled strengths to the Network's goal of making sustainable improvements in maternal and child health.