The goal of this training programme is to strengthen patient-oriented HIV clinical investigation by physician-scientists and other exceptional clinicians in Mwanza, northwestern Tanzania. This is a five-year (2021-2026) programme supported by the Fogarty International Center at the US National Institutes of Health. The program builds upon two decades of collaboration and capacity building by the partner institutions, including the Mwanza Intervention Trials Unit (MITU) and the Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences (CUHAS), in Mwanza, Tanzania; and the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, USA.

The goals of the proposed training program are:1.) To increase the number of clinical investigators at MITU and thereby increase institutional capacity for HIV clinical investigation.2.) Establish CUHAS/MITU as a sustainable training center for HIV clinical investigation. We will provide long-term training to 15 outstanding clinician scientists, including PhD candidates (n=10) and MS students (n=5). At the end of the 5-year training program, MITU will have a cadre of clinical investigators and a greater depth and breadth of externally funded HIV patient-oriented research. MITU/CUHAS will be a training hub for HIV clinical investigators in East Africa.

Daniel Fitzgerald, MD (Weill Cornell, PI), Saidi Kapiga MD, ScD (MITU, Co-PI), and Benson Kidenya MD, PhD (CUHAS, Site PI) direct the training program with a multidisciplinary faculty. Dr. Fitzgerald is the Director of the Center for Global Health at Weill Cornell, conducts research in HIV and tuberculosis (TB), and leads multiple NIH research-training programs. Dr. Kapiga is the Scientific Director of MITU and an internationally recognized expert in HIV clinical research. Dr. Kidenya is the Associate Director of Research at CUHAS. He conducts research on the molecular epidemiology of HIV/TB in East Africa.