Compaq Gift Establishes UT-H/Brazil Medical Exchange Program

Strengthening its ongoing relationship with The University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Compaq has funded a unique exchange program between UT-Houston and seven medical institutions in Brazil.

The project launch includes "exchange" visits where faculty can meet their counterparts and set the research exchange agenda. Faculty and students at respective universities will then work together using Compaq laptops for video conferencing, e-mail and telecommunications.

The $300,000 gift will allow UT-Houston and Brazilian doctors to collaborate on research in areas of mutual interest for three years. UT-Houston faculty will focus on learning about tropical diseases now affecting the U.S., while Brazilian doctors learn about hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, cancer prevention and control and other public health issues affecting Brazil's newly industrialized communities.

"Technology is speeding up communication and improving collaboration opportunities among doctors around the world," says Thomas F. Burks, Ph.D., executive vice president for research and academic affairs. "Advances in telecommunications and videoconferencing allow us to instantly share and compare knowledge with others irrespective of their location. Using the latest in technology, physicians in Houston can view and assess medical test results from a patient in Brazil; Brazilian medical students can participate in lectures from the Texas Medical Center, and researchers thousands of miles apart can easily collaborate, advancing our knowledge of disease prevention and treatment."

With the Space City experiencing an increase in the number of Central and South American immigrants, local doctors are seeing more patients with unfamiliar tropical diseases. UT-Houston faculty hope to learn from Brazilian efforts in tropical medicine and stop the spread of these diseases.

If, for example, infected immigrants decided to sell units of their blood for income, disease could pass undetected through the U.S. blood supply. Current screening techniques do not screen for every tropical ailment. UT-Houston hopes to work with Brazilian researchers to devise inexpensive blood tests that will identify contaminated blood and prevent its use.

In 1995, Compaq sponsored Project Heartbeat!, a study that looked at early elevations of blood pressure in children as predictors of health-threatening hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases in adults. No country previously had undertaken a comprehensive study of the prevalence of elevated blood pressure in children. The goal of the study is to determine whether susceptibility to cardiovascular disease can be established early in life and whether lifestyle changes or drug treatment can alter outcomes. With Compaq's gift, UT-Houston faculty will also be able to monitor blood pressure in Brazilian children.

- SANDRA HENRY

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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