Douglas Heimburger

Dr. Heimburger is Professor of Medicine and Associate Director for Education and Training in the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH). An internist, physician nutrition specialist, and global health scientist, he directs VIGH’s education and training programs for Vanderbilt students and trainees, including the Global Health Track in Vanderbilt’s Master of Public Health Program. His research focuses on nutritionally-related non-communicable diseases, especially identification of causes of short- and long-term complications and comorbidities of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Among these is the contribution of a refeeding-like syndrome to early antiretroviral therapy-associated mortality in underweight Zambian adults (R21AI076430), which led to an 1,800-participant randomized intervention trial in Tanzania and Zambia with colleagues in 5 other countries, the NUSTART Study (EDCTP IP.2009.33011.004, S. Filteau, PI). He was also Co-PI of R21TW010471 (Wilbroad Mutale, PI, 2016-18), which assessed capacity to prevent and manage major HIV-related non-communicable diseases in primary care centers in Zambia.  He has had major NIH support for research training and global health capacity building (NCI, FIC, NIDDK, NIAID, CDC). Among these are the University of Zambia-Vanderbilt Training Partnership for HIV-Nutrition-Metabolic Research (UVP, D43TW009744, 2015-2020, PI, focused on building NCD research capacity at the University of Zambia SOM); the Vanderbilt-Emory-Cornell-Duke Consortium for Global Health Fellows (R25TW009337, 2012-2022, PI); the NIH Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars and Fellows Support Center at Vanderbilt (R24TW007988, 2009-2015, Co-PI); the Vanderbilt-Zambia Network for Innovation in Global Health Technologies NIH/FIC (D43TW009348, 2012-2017, Co-PI); the Vanderbilt-CIDRZ AIDS International Training Research Program (AITRP, D43TW001035, 2009-2016, Co-PI); the Vanderbilt Training Program in Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology of Cancer (R25CA160056, 2012-2022, Co-PI); and establishment of the University of Guyana MPH Program (1U2GGH000689, CDC, PI).