Iquitos Satellite Laboratory (IQTLAB)

Purpose

The mission of IQTLAB is to improve understanding of health problems among vulnerable populations in order to identify sustainable solutions that improve their health, social and economic conditions.

Team Members

The IQTLAB team consists of experts from Asociación Benéfica Pisma, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine. IQTLAB utilizes a multidisciplinary approach that combines knowledge of the epidemiology of tropical infectious disease, malnutrition, intestinal infection, biostatistics, medical science, demography, ecology, and spatial data collection and analysis.

Operations

The laboratory is approximately 4,000 square feet (370 m²) and is capable of conducting sophisticated laboratory diagnostics and experiments. In addition to the laboratory, IQTLAB supports provides a vast array of support for scientific data collection, including GPS/GIS data collection, survey data collection, satellite image processing, and climate conditions (strategic deployment of weather monitoring systems). IQTLAB currently has a number of ongoing projects, including:

1. Etiology, risk factors and interactions of enteric infections and malnutrition and the consequences for child health and development
2. "MAL-ED”
3. Probiotics for Pediatric Diarrhea in Peru”, “Epidemiology of shigellosis in the Peruvian Amazon
4. Improved molecular identification of Neotropical Anophelines
5. Malaria - Molecular Genotyping
6. Human reservoirs of Plasmodium vivax Transmission in the Peruvian Amazon
7. Serologic assessment of burden of diarrheal disease in children under 5 years old
8. Global Infectious Disease Training Grant
9. Road construction, land use and malaria in the Peruvian Amazon
10. Population-environment dynamics influencing malaria risk in the Peruvian Amazon