Rwandan Research Fellowship

National Institute On Minority Health And Health Disparities

Investigators

Abstract

For FY22, Dr. Marie Grace Duhuze Karera, Md, MSc, was selected as the 6th NIMHD-NIDDK-Rwandan fellow. Her NIH fellowship training took place from July 2021 - July 2022. While at NIH, Dr. Karera conducted a series of studies that identified a low-cost, practical alternative to the standard glucose beverage (glucola) utilized for the fasting plasma glucose test (FPG) that would act similarly on blood glucose levels. Through several experiments, she found that a mixture of water and pastry sugar, also known as confectioners sugar or powdered sugar, performed very similarly to the standard drink but was much cheaper. The brand-name drink is $8 a bottle, which would be prohibitively expensive for diabetes screening in an under-resourced area. But 75 grams of powdered sugarthe amount in one drinkcosts less than a dollar. Dr. Duhuze Karera suggested that the sugar could be pre-packaged in individual doses to ensure standardization. During her fellowship, Dr. Duhuze Karera also investigated low-cost ways to treat diabetes. She carried out a literature search on ways to treat diabetes without medication, through lifestyle interventions such as diet or physical activity. She focused on studies that included participants who were newly diagnosed with diabetes and had not received treatment yet, like the patients she often saw in Rwanda. This led her to research showing that diet and exercise brought about diabetes remission for many people and that a Mediterranean diet specifically could help remission last longer. However, a Mediterranean diet is not practical in rural Rwanda; olive oil is not widely available, for example. Thus, Dr. Duhuze Karera plans to work with a Rwandan nutritionist and community members to choose locally available foods that have similar benefit to those in the Mediterranean diet. She will do this in Butaro, Rwanda, a rural area and the home of UGHE. For FY23, Jean de Dieu Gatete was selected as the 7th NIMHD-NIDDK-Rwandan Rwandan fellow. His fellowship will last from July 11, 2022 July 10, 2023. Dr. Gatete is a highly respected physician in Rwanda with extensive administrative experience. In Rwanda, he was serving as Director of Health System Strengthening in Rwanda. This NIH Fellowship will allow Dr. Gatete to expand his knowledge to support his long- term goal of directing clinical research at the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Kigali, Rwanda. Under the mentorship of Dr. Anne Sumner, he will receive training on setting up and running a Unit for Clinical Investigation focused on the early detection and treatment of heart disease and diabetes in Rwanda. This fellowship will allow Dr. Gatete to gain essential experience which will help him formulate valuable clinical research questions designed to improve cardiometabolic health and decrease the prevalence of diabetes in Rwanda as well as other African countries. Given that diabetes increases susceptibility to and severity of COVID-19, it will be important to train Rwandan fellows at NIH to investigate the intersection of these two conditions.