Chairman of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) Board of Directors, Daniel Mbinda, Board Members George Njoroge and Timothy Waema and the acting Director General for KEMRI, Sam Kariuki, visited The Ohio State University on May 5 and 6 to discuss current and future collaborations.

The Global One Health initiative (GOHi) hosted the team and met with various university leaders and groups, visited several of Ohio State’s state-of-the-art facilities and connected with faculty at the forefront of Ohio State’s research and implementation science work to grow this partnership. Ohio State and KEMRI share a common vision to advance research with life-transforming impact and mutually beneficial areas of collaboration.

Ohio State has several current and upcoming grants that are implemented in partnership with Kenya, particularly KEMRI, including the NIH-funded One Health Research Training program (D43), NIH-funded National Cancer Institute research (R01) and the new NIH-funded One Health Ethics project (R25) which includes KEMRI and the University of Nairobi, among others. KEMRI has remained a strategic partner in Kenya since 2009.

KEMRI is Kenya’s government entity that leads health research and operates a network of robust centers and laboratories. Beyond Kenya, KEMRI is a leader in laboratory-based research in East Africa. Following the team’s visit, KEMRI and GOHi agreed that it is time to elevate their partnership to a more robust, mutually beneficial and sustained engagement.

GOHi looks forward to additional collaborations in research, implementation science, training and increased grant funding for mutually beneficial work.