Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia

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Cayetano Heredia University located in Lima, Peru is considered one of the top medical schools in Peru, and is one of the major producers and publishers of scientific research in the country. Founded in 1961 by a group of professors and students from the medical school of the four-century-old National University of San Marcos in Lima, Cayetano Heredia University has established numerous agreements and collaborative arrangements with leading institutions from all over the world.


Site Director

Dr. Patricia García, Professor, School of Public Health, Cayetano Heredia University
pattyg@uw.edu / patricia.garcia@upch.pe

Dr. García is a Professor at the School of Public Health at Cayetano Heredia University (UPCH) in Lima-Peru. She is the former Minister of Health of Peru, Dean of the School of Public Health at UPCH and former Chief of the Peruvian National Institute of Health (INS). As a recognized as a leader in Global Health, she has been member of the PAHO Foundation Technical Advisory Group (FTAG), board member of the Consortium of Universities in Global Health and President of the Latin American Association Against STDs (ALACITS). Dr. García is affiliate Professor of the Department of Global Health, at University of Washington and of the School of Public Health at Tulane University. She is actively involved in research and training in Global health, Reproductive health, STI/HIV, HPV and medical informatics. She has been recently appointed member of the United States National Academy of Medicine, becoming the first Peruvian professional with such a distinction.


Mentors

Dr. Jorge Alarcón, Principal Professor, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
jalarconv@citbm.pe 

Dr. Alarcón has extensive experience in research and training. He is a physician and epidemiologist with training in epidemiological and laboratory research of infectious diseases at the Institute Pasteur (1983-4), the University of Tulane (1985), the “Centro de Capacitación en Inmunología de la OMS” of Lausana (1985), and the University of Washington (1994-97). He is Principal Professor of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, where he acted as Dean, Head of the Academic Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Director of the Tropical Medicine Institute, and Head of the Masters Section of the Postgraduate Unit. Since 1988, Dr. Alarcón has studied the HIV epidemic in Lima, Peru.

Dr. César Cárcamo, Full Professor, Head of the Epidemiology Unit at the School of Public Health, UPCH
cesar.carcamo@upch.pe

Dr. Cárcamo is a Full Professor, Head of the Epidemiology Unit at the School of Public Health, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Sciences at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH). His research interests lie in Methods in Epidemiology, Sexually Transmitted Infections, HIV/AIDS, and Biomedical Informatics. He completed his MPH and PhD at the University of Washington and has published more than 100 papers in reputed national and international journals with main focus in epidemiology of infectious diseases. Dr. Cárcamo worked for the Peruvian Ministry of Health for over 3 years, first designing a surveillance system for HIV/STI, and later as an advisor to the Minister of Health on COVID issues. He has additional extensive experience in a number of clinical and field studies, local and multinational, including individually and community-randomized trials, population-based surveys, operations research and implementations studies, among others.

Dr. Jorge Sanchez, Infectious Diseases Specialist
jsanchez@citbm.pe

Dr. Sanchez is an infectious diseases specialist from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia with a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Washington. From 1992 to 2000, he worked as a University of Washington consultant in HIV/STI research and training, with focus on Central America and Caribbean countries. From 1995 to 2000, Dr. Sanchez was Director of the Peruvian National STD and AIDS Control Program and Minister of Health’s Advisor. In 2000, he founded IMPACTA and started collaborating with different US NIH/NIAID/DAIDS clinical research networks as Peru Principal Investigator (HPTN and HVTN in 2000, and ACTG in 2003). In 2004, hewas awarded the US NIH/NIAID/DAIDS Andean CIPRA and in 2006 was awarded the IMPACTA PERU Clinical Trial Unit (CTU) serving five US NIH/NIAID/DAIDS clinical research networks (HVTN, HPTN, MTN, ACTG and INSIGHT) through up to 9 CRSs. In 2013 and in 2020 he was awarded to continue a pluripotent and multidimensional/multilevel CTU serving DAIDS-funded Networks. He is a member of the UW CFAR since 1998 and currently member of the Global Scientific Advisory Board.

Dr. Pablo Tsukayama, Assistant Professor of Microbiology
pablo.tsukayama@upch.pe

Dr. Tsukayama is a Peruvian microbiologist with a long-standing interest in infectious diseases affecting Latin American populations. His research combines approaches in clinical microbiology, genomics, bioinformatics, and infectious disease epidemiology. Dr. Tsukayama obtained his PhD in Molecular Microbiology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2015. His thesis work led to a research article in Nature, and, as a Chevening UK Scholar, Dr. Tsukayama obtained an MSc in Public Health in Developing Countries at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He returned to Peru in 2017 to establish his research group at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH), where he also obtained his BSc degree 12 years earlier. As the principal investigator of UPCH’s Microbial Genomics Laboratory, Dr. Tsukayama aims to apply genomic approaches to studying microbial pathogens in Peru and generate evidence that guides policy and interventions to reduce the disease burden facing communities in Peru.