UB team visits community health partners in Africa to develop drugs to fight HIV, TB

Faculty investigators from UB’s Center for Integrated Global Biomedical Sciences (CIGBS) recently traveled to Zimbabwe and South Africa to address two public health challenges devastating that part of the continent — the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB).

Over 12 days, the four faculty members met with researchers at partner universities, and government and community programs, and conducted site visits of laboratories working to develop drugs to fight HIV and TB.

Their visit comes at a time when millions are dying annually from the two health conditions.

“More than 420,000 individuals die each year of HIV-related illness in sub-Saharan Africa, and this represents a remarkable 65% of the global death total,” says Gene Morse, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Meanwhile, he notes, TB has regained its designation as the predominant global infectious disease, with 10.6 million cases reported in 2022 and 2023; of those, 2.7 million cases occurred in Africa.

“Part of the reason for the large number of deaths is that they are overlapping epidemics where HIV-associated immune deficiency also increases susceptibility to TB infection,” says Morse, who led the Africa trip. He also directs the CIGBS, serves as principal investigator for the UB HIV Clinical Pharmacology Quality Assurance (CPQA) Program and the UB NIH Fogarty International Center HIV Research Training program.

“The effect of both HIV and TB has been devastating for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It has become imperative to me that building in-country HIV and TB research capacity is the main path to addressing this situation,” Morse says. “We made this trip at a crucial time to build upon the grants and research ongoing in our CPQA and CIGBS programs working to find ways to improve health outcomes for people diagnosed with HIV and TB. We’re collaborating with our partners in those countries to leverage mentoring of health professions faculty and building laboratory sciences, biostatistics and implementation research.”

Morse also serves as co-investigator and global health mentor in an ongoing research grant at the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University that is investigating nanoparticle development for immunotherapy for TB.

Along with Morse, the UB faculty members who made the trip included Robin DiFrancesco, research associate professor of pharmacy practice and program manager of the CPQA program; Troy Wood, professor of chemistry and laboratory director of CPQA Laboratories; and Raymond Cha, clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice and assistant director of CPQA.

They all serve as mentors in the UB-University of Zimbabwe HIV Clinical Pharmacology and Research Training Program. The program, which began in 2008, trains predoctoral and postdoctoral scholars with an interest in HIV clinical pharmacology and therapeutics.

In 2023, the CPQA contract received more than $460,000 in supplemental funding from the National Institutes of Health to expand its HIV antiretroviral proficiency testing program. It also enabled UB to provide a TB drug proficiency testing program, which is headquartered at the CIGBS. Samples are sent to clinical pharmacology participating laboratories around the world, and results are analyzed and reported twice a year.

“Our goal of working with these global academic and community research partners is to optimize ongoing efforts to create new and effective drugs to both prevent and treat TB,” Morse explains. “In addition, because both HIV and TB infection requires different antimicrobial treatments, there is a strong likelihood for pharmacologic drug interactions that may impact the desired beneficial outcomes.”

As part of this CPQA initiative, and in concert with CIGBS-led HIV research training programs, the UB team visited the academic and community centers engaged in HIV and TB clinical and laboratory research to discuss progress, highlight priorities and facilitate communications among investigators and trainees.

They included the University of Zimbabwe’s International Pharmacology Specialty Laboratory, the Zimbabwe campus of the Intellectus Campus, a private college with campuses in Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa and Eswatini; the Health Infrastructure Technology and Skills Coordination Center at Health Galaxy Park in Harare, Zimbabwe; the U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe; the University of Cape Town Clinical Pharmacology Laboratory and University of the Western Cape School of Pharmacy; the Tygerberg Campus of Stellenbosch University; the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa; the Center for AIDS Program in Research for South Africa; and the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, South Africa.

The team also attended the annual meeting of the Global Virus Network Annual Conference, which focused on viral infections in Africa and provided an opportunity to discuss the UB programs that are active in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria and Jamaica.

“The meetings in Durban provided a culmination of the visits and conferences that took place during our team’s visit,” Morse says. “The outstanding efforts already made by the programs in Zimbabwe and South Africa have helped millions of individuals with HIV and TB. Our goal is to continue to conduct comprehensive research initiatives while promoting high-quality clinical and laboratory science and therapeutics development, both at UB and with our community partners in Africa.”