International Research
- The Center for International Research promotes multi-disciplinary research opportunities and collaborations at international locations with international partners.
- The Center is always looking for new opportunities in new locales with new partners.
For the past 40 years, past and present SUNY researchers have collaborated on research projects in Kamphaeng Phet Province, located in northern Thailand, 220 miles north of Bangkok. The province, consisting of 11 districts with approximately 700,000 people, largely working
in agricultural occupations (rice/tapioca, banana farming), with flat plains geography in the east and mountain ranges in the west.
A pivotal partner in clinical research is Kamphaeng Phet Provincial Hospital (KPPH), a 414-bed hospital that provides tertiary inpatient care and is the sole government-referral provincial hospital in the province. KPPH and its collaborative partners hold a rich history of tropical disease research, including seminal vaccine trials for hepatitis A and Japanese encephalitis as well as clinical studies on transmission and pathogenesis of endemic vector borne viral diseases.
Songkhla Province is 600 miles from Bangkok in southern Thailand, close to the Thai-Malaysia border. Located along the Gulf of Thailand, the capital city, Songkla, was a coastal trading port. Upstate researchers have been involved with projects in the interior or the province, in rural communities surrounding the city of Hat Yai and have focused on epidemiology of dengue and chikungunya.
Maseno University School of Medicine (MUSOM), which opened in 2012, is a growing resource for the region, working to train physicians to meet the growing demand for healthcare services across Kenya.
Maseno University School of Medicine has clinical training facilities at Jaramogi Odinga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital and Obama Children's Hospital. There are currently medical students, intern medical officers, and residents being trained at these facilities.
University of West Indies – Mona Campus: The University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona campus offers world class, accredited higher education programs to Jamaica, the region and the globe. UWI engages in research and development designed to support the social
and economic growth of the Caribbean region,the provision of community service, and the enrichment of the academic experience. The UWI is the region's premier educational institution, with faculties offering a wide range of undergraduate, masters and doctoral programmes in Humanities and Education, Science and Technology, Science and Agriculture, Engineering, Law, Medical Sciences and Social Sciences.
Walking Palms Global Health Initiative: Walking Palms Global Health is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit located in Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador that deploys Systems Thinking and data-driven research to design and implement holistic, community-led health initiatives.
Walking Palms is active throughout Latin America and the Caribbean where climate change is exacerbating local residents' risks from drought, floods and other increasingly volatile environmental conditions.
Escuela Superior Politcnica del Litoral: The Escuela Superior Politcnica del Litoral (ESPOL) is a public university located in Guayaquil, Guayas Province in Ecuador. ESPOL has five faculties or schools, fifteen research centers, and several associated centers providing twenty-six undergraduate and ten master’s degrees
Areas of Research
Dengue
Since the late 1990s, Upstate researchers have conducted serial longitudinal prospective studies on dengue, enrolling children and family members in Thailand to understand dengue pathogenesis, development of immune responses and correlates of protection, disease outcomes, risk factors for infection and transmission as well as transmission dynamics across families and communities. Family cohort studies that enroll mothers and newborns will examine how the early immune environment to DENV, as shaped by maternally-transferred DENV antibodies and the timing and features of early DENV and non-DENV flavivirus exposures, shapes an individual's immune profiles and future risk of illness.
Chikungunya
While dengue largely remains endemic year-to-year, chikungunya transmission is manifested by outbreaks of disease that can be difficult to predict; acute illness can be followed by debilitating sequalae. Upstate researchers are working to define the epidemiology of chikungunya infection and disease, particularly in anticipation of outbreaks, with the ultimate goal of assisting in product development for prevention and/or treatment of disease.
Malaria
Malaria collaborative projects exist select endemic provinces in Thailand and focus on areas such as multi-drug resistant Plasmodium falciparum infections and zoonotic transmission of simian malaria (Plasmodium knowlesi, etc.) and relapsing malaria (Plasmodium vivax and ovale). Challenges of relapsing malaria include understanding host pharmacogenomics and other factors that may affect the ability of anti-malarial drugs to clear the dormant hypnozoites.
Tick-Borne Diseases
Upstate researchers are involved in various tick-borne disease research initiatives within the basic and translational science pathways. Projects aim to understand vector, host, and viral determinants of arboviral transmission, the impact of co-infections on clinical outcomes, and virus-vector-host dynamics. Active surveillance projects are ongoing, seeking to understand the impact of climate change on the geographic expansion of tick-borne diseases and pathogen discovery.
Sickle Cell
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is one of the most common inherited disorders in the world, mostly affecting people of African descent and those living in malaria endemic regions. An approximate 75% or more of the estimated global births with SCD occur in SubSaharan Africa, and SCD accounts for an estimated 5% or greater of mortality in African children less than 5 years of age. It is widely cited that 50-90% of children born with SCD in Sub-Saharan Africa die before their 5th birthday, and the overall rate of death before age 5 years is estimated to be around 7% in Sub-Saharan Africa.
SUNY Upstate partners with Cincinnati Children's and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching & Referral Hospital on a project titled Sickle Cell Health and Reaching Equity: A Partnership for Quality Improvement. This project aims to decrease morbidity and mortality due to Sickle Cell Disease for pediatric patients at Obama Children's Hospital through data review, quality improvement projects, and capacity building an advocacy.
Find a Global Health Researcher
Andrea Shaw
Stephen J. Thomas
Adam Waickman
Saravanan Thangamani