VIGH to house AIDS epidemiology database
Experts at Vanderbilt’s Institute for Global Health (VIGH) have been awarded $400,000 a year over the next five years by the National Institutes for Health to serve as an International Epidemiologic Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) Network Coordinating Center.
IeDEA Network Coordinating Centers serve as both a clearinghouse for the latest research work addressing the AIDS epidemic globally, and as a center for promotion and support of these projects.
Mary Lou Lindegren, M.D.
Bill Wester, M.D., MPH
Mary Lou Lindegren, M.D., and Bill Wester, M.D., MPH, serve as the co-principal investigators and will work with Stephany Duda, Ph.D., and Firas Wehbe, M.D., Ph.D., in the Department of Biomedical Informatics.
“This will be an outstanding opportunity to apply the talents of Vanderbilt's informatics expertise to facilitate both the development of methods and standards of data collection and harmonization to enhance the quality of observational databases,” Lindegren said.
“It is certainly a privilege for Vanderbilt to take on such an important leadership role within this international network,” Wester said.
The team credits Dan Masys, M.D., who recently announced his retirement as professor and Chair of Biomedical Informatics, for laying the groundwork for Vanderbilt to serve in this role. The IeDEA Coordinating Center at Vanderbilt will support seven international regions and working groups of the IeDEA network, including the Caribbean, Central and South America network that was re-awarded to Vanderbilt University with Catherine C. McGowan, M.D., serving as co-principal investigator.
The goal is to collaborate to collect and define key variables, harmonize data and implement methods to effectively pool data, thus providing a cost effective way to streamline HIV/AIDS research.
VIGH will support and provide a website for this expanding global network. The new site will launch in mid-July at www.iedea.org.
The National Institute Of Allergy and Infectious Diseases established the IeDEA network in 2005 to address the evolving questions in HIV/AIDS currently unanswerable by single research groups.