This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855) aims to leverage antibody-omics to prevent and detect tuberculosis (TB) in children affected by HIV. The $209,750 award supports research to define antibody features associated with protection from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection among HIV-exposed infants (Aim 1) and identify biomarkers for active TB and MTB...
This Project Grant award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Trans-NIH Research Support program (CFDA 93.310) totaling $200,000 provides funding from March 2025 to January 2030 to evaluate the use of a machine learning algorithm-based implementation strategy for a comprehensive care management and care coordination (CCM/CC) intervention to improve HIV care continuum outcomes. The primary goal is to utilize a predictive algorithm developed by the community-based partner Comprehensive...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855) will support research to characterize metabolic profiles and outcomes among tuberculosis (TB) patients in Tanzania. The $201,549 award to the Medical University of South Carolina will fund a 5-year study with the following objectives: Measure and describe metabolic markers and TB severity at the time of TB diagnosis, testing...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865), provides $212,636 to Socios En Salud Sucursal Peru, a non-profit healthcare organization in Peru. The grant supports the development of tools to help primary care physicians in low- and middle-income countries better identify child and adolescent tuberculosis (TB) household contacts who require further...
This $499,140 Project Grant award from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865) will fund the "TSEPAMO NEXT GENERATION: OPTIMIZING HIV TREATMENT AND PREVENTION STRATEGIES FOR PREGNANT WOMEN IN BOTSWANA" research study. The study has two key aims: 1) to assess the safety and efficacy of two-drug antiretroviral therapy (ART) with...
This Project Grant award in the amount of $431,712, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), aims to improve HIV testing among children under five in rural Uganda. The primary goal is to engage with traditional healers to facilitate HIV counseling and testing via oral swab antigen tests for this vulnerable pediatric population. The award supports two key activities: 1) determining barriers and...
The federal Project Grant awarded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865), will fund research to obtain new insights into gut dysbiosis and inflammatory signaling cascades related to metabolic disturbances in youth with perinatally acquired HIV (YPHIV) in sub-Saharan Africa. The $265,369 award to the Ann & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago...
This Project Grant award from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (CFDA 93.837 Cardiovascular Diseases Research) provides $1,265,657 to the Regents of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to conduct a randomized trial to determine optimal tuberculosis (TB) screening and preventive therapy delivery strategies to improve maternal and birth outcomes among pregnant women with HIV in Uganda. The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of using C-reactive protein (CRP) screening...
This $452,376 Project Grant awarded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) supports research to develop a predictive model for identifying HIV patients at risk of disengaging from medical care. The University of Chicago is conducting this 2-year project, which has two key objectives: Determine the performance of a Natural Language Processing (NLP) model for predicting loss to follow-up (LTFU) from HIV care across...
This Project Grant award from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865) provides $588,566 to the University of Maryland, Baltimore to conduct a cross-disciplinary study on the long-term neurodevelopmental and school readiness impacts of in-utero HIV exposure on children in Sub-Saharan Africa. The research aims to establish a core team of investigators who can...
DSPACE: UTILIZING DATA SCIENCE TO PREDICT AND IMPROVE HEALTH OUTCOMES IN PEDIATRIC HIV - ABSTRACT METABOLIC SYNDROME (METS) IS RAPIDLY INCREASING IN CHILDREN INFECTED WITH HIV IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA (SSA). ACCORDING TO OUR PRELIMINARY DATA, 1 IN 30 CHILDREN INFECTED WITH HIV BETWEEN THE AGE OF 16 AND 19 ARE DIAGNOSED WITH METS. IN ADDITION, TO METS, TUBERCULOSIS (TB) REMAINS A LEADING CAUSE OF MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY AMONG HIV-INFECTED CHILDREN. MOREOVER, CHILDREN WITH HIV HAVE A 30-FOLD RISK OF DEVELOPING TB AND A SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER RISK OF DEATH COMPARED TO NON-HIV-INFECTED CHILDREN. CLINICALLY, TB IN HIV-INFECTED CHILDREN MANIFESTS WITH EXTENSIVE HETEROGENEITY (LATENT TB OR ACTIVE TB [PROBABLE, DEFINITE, OR POSSIBLE]), WHICH POSES A SIGNIFICANT DIAGNOSTIC CHALLENGE. THE PAUCIBACILLARY NATURE OF PEDIATRIC TB MEANS THAT ONLY A SMALL FRACTION OF CHILDREN WITH A COMPATIBLE CLINICAL PRESENTATION CAN BE BACTERIOLOGICALLY CONFIRMED. THERE HAVE BEEN VARIOUS EFFORTS TO DEVELOP DATA SCIENCE TOOLS TO ADDRESS PATIENT CLASSIFICATION AND RISK STRATIFICATION OF METS AND IMPROVE THE DIAGNOSIS OF TB IN ADULT WESTERN POPULATIONS. HOWEVER, THESE TECHNOLOGIES HAVE NOT BEEN DEPLOYED AND EVALUATED IN AFRICA, WHICH BEARS THE BIGGEST BURDEN OF PEOPLE INFECTED WITH HIV AND TB AND WHERE THE BURDEN OF NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES IS GROWING RAPIDLY. FURTHERMORE, METS IS A KNOWN RISK FACTOR FOR THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF DIABETES MELLITUS (DM) AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE (CVD) IN ADULTHOOD. UNFORTUNATELY, INTERVENTIONS (EITHER PHARMACOLOGICAL OR NON- PHARMACOLOGICAL) THAT IMPROVE METABOLIC RISK FACTORS FOR CHILDREN WITH LONG-TERM METABOLIC IMPAIRMENT (METS) DO NOT COMPLETELY PREVENT OR REVERSE CVD OR DM COMPLICATIONS, WHICH MAY BE THE RESULT OF THE CURRENT TIMING OF INTERVENTIONS WHICH ARE IMPLEMENTED AFTER METABOLIC RISK FACTORS HAVE BEEN PRESENT FOR MANY YEARS. THUS, THE DETERMINATION OF THE LONGITUDINAL RISK OF METS BECOMES IMPERATIVE. SIMILARLY, THE AVAILABILITY OF MULTI-OMICS DATA PRESENTS A VALUABLE OPPORTUNITY TO INVESTIGATE THE HOST GENETICS OF TB DISEASE IN SSA CHILDREN TO ADVANCE THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHLY SENSITIVE TB DIAGNOSTIC ALGORITHMS THAT ARE MUCH NEEDED. THEREFORE, THE OVERARCHING GOAL OF THIS APPLICATION IS TO UTILIZE DATA SCIENCE APPROACHES TO INTEGRATE LARGE TEMPORAL ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS (EHR) WITH MULTI-OMICS DATA TO PREDICT AND IMPROVE HEALTH OUTCOMES OF HIV-INFECTED CHILDREN IN AFRICA. THIS RETROSPECTIVE, DESCRIPTIVE LONGITUDINAL STUDY WILL LEVERAGE EXISTING DATA ON ~118,000 HIV-INFECTED CHILDREN FROM THE BAYLOR INTERNATIONAL PEDIATRIC AIDS INITIATIVE (BIPAI) PROGRAMS IN UGANDA, BOTSWANA AND ESWATINI. IN AIM 1, WE WILL USE MACHINE LEARNING TO IDENTIFY INFORMATIVE FEATURES WITHIN LONGITUDINAL EHRS AND GENOMIC DATA TO PREDICT METS IN HIV-INFECTED CHILDREN. WE SHALL ALSO DEVELOP COMPOSITE RISK SCORES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF METS ASSOCIATED WITH DOLUTEGRAVIR-BASED COMBINATION ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY. AIM 2 OF THIS PROPOSAL WILL FOCUS ON THE USE OF EXPLAINABLE MACHINE LEARNING TO UNCOVER MOLECULAR SIGNATURES IN MULTI-OMICS DATA AS WELL AS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES IN TEMPORAL EHR THAT IMPROVE THE POWER OF PREDICTIVE MODELS FOR THE DIAGNOSIS OF TB IN HIV-INFECTED CHILDREN. THIS EFFORT WILL TRANSLATE INTO DEVELOPING CLINICALLY RELEVANT COMPOSITE RISK SCORES FOR THE DIAGNOSIS OF TB AND THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF NON-SPUTUM TB DIAGNOSTIC BIOMARKERS. THIS APPLICATION PROVIDES A MODEL METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK THAT CAN BE APPLIED TO MULTIMODAL DATA IN HIV-INFECTED CHILDREN AND IMPROVES OUR UNDERSTANDING OF HOW TO EFFECTIVELY USE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO TARGET PERSONALIZED OR PUBLIC HEALTH INTERVENTIONS THAT IMPROVE OUTCOMES ACROSS THE ENTIRE SPECTRUM OF THE HIV CONTINUUM CARE IN AFRICA.