UNMC and the University of Puerto Rico have begun collaboration on HIV research funded by a federal grant.
UNMC was chosen to be a part of the Center for Research and Development for Minority Institutions from among the top institutions in the country. Other medical centers participating in the program are Johns Hopkins University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Washington-Seattle. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke sponsors the grant, which was awarded to promote mentoring between established and minority institutions and is worth a total of about $5 million over five years.
Loyda Melendez, M.D., the program’s leader at the University of Puerto Rico, chose to partner with UNMC because of the university’s track record in the research’s focus: neurological consequences of HIV infection.
“UNMC is a leader in the field and has an outstanding record for training inexperienced researchers to become independent scientists with their own labs and grants,” Dr. Melendez said. “I’m glad to have established this collaboration. The two universities will benefit from each other greatly.”
The University of Puerto Rico in San Juan has campuses for medical sciences, nursing, allied health professions, pharmacy and dental studies. In HIV research at the University of Puerto Rico, most of the testing is done on Hispanic women — a group that isn’t well studied in the United States. 
“Certainly Hispanic women have been understudied, although they make up a growing population of new HIV-infected individuals,” said Howard Gendelman, M.D., director of the Center for Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Disorders at UNMC. “This is a great opportunity to help serve an underserved population of minority women.”
The program requires collaboration within UNMC as well as with the University of Puerto Rico. Dr. Gendelman enlisted researchers from a variety of UNMC departments to participate in the research.
“The beauty of this program is its depth,” Dr. Gendelman said. “It involves people at UNMC who wouldn’t normally be involved with each other, and people who don’t usually work on grant-related projects.”
Dr. Gendelman and Jialin Zheng, M.D., both in the Center for Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Disorders and the department of pathology and microbiology, are lead investigators on the study; Jim Anderson, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the department of preventive and societal medicine, serves as the study’s statistician; Mike Dierks, in the department of information technology services, helps with communication between the universities; and Susan Swindells, M.D., associate professor in the department of internal medicine, is the project’s clinical liaison with extensive HIV clinical expertise.
Though Omaha and San Juan are thousands of miles apart, Dierks, an information specialist, found a way for the universities to communicate that shrinks the distance at the click of a mouse.
“The two universities will use a new computer program from TeraGlobal Communications Corp. for weekly videoconferencing,” Dierks said. “With the program, both parties can see clear video images in real time, hear each other perfectly and share research data through the same computer applications.”
UNMC’s cross-disciplinary effort and connection with the University of Puerto Rico shows UNMC assuming a new role in education.
“UNMC’s participation in this program proves that it cares about helping minority-led programs develop into world-class institutions,” Dr. Gendelman said. “We’re proud to be partnered with such an outstanding institution as the University of Puerto Rico and look forward to making advances through our joint research.”