Dr. Robert Horsburgh, from the Boston University School of Public Health, visited Vanderbilt March 29-31, 2016 to meet with faculty and staff and present the keynote lecture at the 2016 Clinical Tuberculosis Symposium: an Update on Treatment and Prevention.

The Metro Nashville Public Health Department hosted a World TB Day awareness event on March 24, 2016 that was open to the community. They included presentations on TB statistics, affected populations, patient perspectives and general awareness activities. Thank you, Metro Nashville, for hosting the Vanderbilt TB Center for 2016 World TB Day!  

Bavesh Kana, Ph.D., from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, visited Vanderbilt University November 16-17, 2015 to engage in collaborative discussions regarding his current work in Tuberculosis and HIV. Dr. Kana presented at a PMI Seminar on “Peptidoglycan remodeling during mycobacterial cell division and tuberculosis disease”.  Dr. Kana is the Head of Unit at the Centre for Excellence for Biomedical Tuberculosis Research.

Drs. Betina Durovni and Solange Cavalcante spent three days in Nashville November 12-14, 2015 to continue discussions about a currently funded TIPS project, “Building a Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Assessing the Quality of Healthcare in Brazil”. Betina, Undersecretary for the Rio de Janeiro Health Secretariat, and Solange, Investigator at the Instituto Nacional de Infectologia, work closely with the community health clinics in a well-known favela, Rocinha, in Rio de Janeiro.

Katherine Fielding, PhD, visited Vanderbilt November 3-5th, 2015 to engage in discussions with the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health and the Vanderbilt TB Center. Dr. Fielding is a Reader in Medical Statistics and Epidemiology and the deputy-director of the TB Centre at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Eduardo Gotuzzo, MD, FACP, FIDSA, visited Nashville October 16-19th to meet with Faculty at the TB Center and the Institute for Global Health. Dr. Gotuzzo works on many collaborative projects at Vanderbilt, including the TB Trails Consortium (TBTC) through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Caribbean, Central, and South American network for HIV Epidemiology (CCASAnet), sponsored by NIH.

Richard E. Chaisson, M.D., Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research, attended the Tennessee CFAR Board Members Retreat on October 14, 2015. Dr. Chaisson is an advisor for the program. He also met with various members of the Vanderbilt Tuberculosis Center during his visit, including Dr. Timothy Sterling and multiple Junior Faculty in the Division of Infectious Diseases.

Aurum Institute leadership visited Vanderbilt University Medical Center October 6-8th, 2015, to discuss potential collaborations in TB and HIV research. Gavin Churchyard, CEO, Dave Clark, Deputy CEO, and Paul David, Chairman, spent two days meeting with School of Medicine and VUMC Faculty.

Dr. Carl Nathan presented at the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology's lecture series on Wednesday, October 7th on "Killing Persistent Mycobacterium tuberculosis". Dr. Nathan is the Chairman of Microbiology and Immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College and is interested in how macrophages kill, how killing is regulated and why killing is not always effective.