Regional Centers of Engagement
Africa
Botswana-UPenn Partnership
The University of Pennsylvania has worked in Botswana since 2001 and currently employs approximately 120 full-time staff in country working under the name the Botswana-UPenn Partnership. The Botswana-UPenn Partnership works with the Government of Botswana Ministry of Health and the University of Botswana to build healthcare and research capacity in Botswana. Penn is taking a broad interdisciplinary approach to train health-care personnel throughout Botswana in the treatment of HIV/AIDS and its complications, to help develop post-graduate training programs at the University of Botswana with an emphasis on Internal Medicine and its subspecialties, to offer experience in global health to Penn trainees, and to develop joint research programs that address issues relevant to the health and welfare of the citizens of Botswana. Please see the Botswana-UPenn Partnership website for more information.
Southeast Asia
Vingroup-penn alliance
The Center of Engagement in Southeast Asia (based in Vietnam) focused on the establishment of medical and nursing schools within a newly formed private, nonprofit university (VinUni) and enhancement of graduate medical education and health care provision within Vietnam’s largest private nonprofit health system (VinMec). Both VinUni and VinMec are components of the VinGroup, Vietnam’s largest private company, a business that shares Penn Medicine’s commitment to community service through the transformation of health care.
Under the framework of the agreement, Penn Medicine will work with VinUni to guide creation of the schools of Medicine and Nursing, while Cornell University will work in parallel with VinUni to build the schools of Business, and Engineering and Technology. More specifically, Penn will work collaboratively with VinUni to develop the undergraduate curriculum and aligned faculty and institutional support structures to establish high caliber programs in nursing and medicine. As the clinical training environment provides an essential component of this endeavor, Penn will also support the VinMec Health Care System to enhance the quality of care and of clinical training, initially at the International Hospital in Times City, Hanoi, and ultimately to build a new VinUni/VinMec teaching hospital in Hanoi. In time, these efforts will encompass creation of medical residency training programs and of a robust clinical research portfolio focused on translational medicine.
Latin American
Peru
The Perelman School of Medicine along with Tulane School of Public Health have partnered with the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia to form the Zoonotic Disease Research Center (ZDRC). Located in the center of Arequipa, Peru, the ZDRC is dedicated to the rigorous investigation of zoonotic disease in an urban landscape.
Originally created through an NIAID-funded Tropical Medicine Research Center award in 2004, the ZDRC employs 25 full-time staff including biologists, epidemiologists, veterinarians, health communicators, nurses and data managers.
The ZDRC houses a wet lab, a computer/GIS ‘dry lab,’ animal facilities and an insectary. The center has longstanding agreements with the Ministry of Health of Arequipa to conduct zoonotic disease research in the city, allowing for the rare opportunity to carry out long term, hands-on investigations of zoonotic diseases as they occur in real time.
Please see the Partnership website for more information.