In May 2019, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) Office of AIDS Research awarded the University of Washington (UW) Timothy A. DeRouen Center for Global Oral Health an administrative supplement grant to support the continuing research collaboration between the DeRouen Center, the UW Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), and the University of Nairobi (UoN). The supplement will be used to advance the ongoing pilot study Children’s HIV Oral Manifestations Project (CHOMP).
Collaboration is one of the four key values foundational to the DeRouen Center, and the supplement opportunity—designed by NIDCR to support interdisciplinary scientific collaborations between CFARs and oral health research organizations—was a perfect fit for CHOMP.
CHOMP, a nested cohort study within the Kenyan Pediatric Study, aims to understand the connection between HIV and oral health in children. The supplement grant hypothesizes that salivary antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) could play a role in decreasing occurrences of oral diseases in children with HIV. With the supplement from NIDCR, the UW and UoN team will transport the saliva samples collected from participants in Nairobi to Seattle, WA where UW School of Dentistry’s Dr. Whasun Chung will analyze them using state-of-the-art technology.
The research team is excited to begin work under the NIDCR supplement. This opportunity will produce new findings in the field of global oral health, leading to improved care for children with HIV and strengthening international collaborative connections.