In 2008, Peruvian medical student Ruben Kenny Briceno was invited to a meeting.
Dr. Santiago Benites, a professor and Director of Research at the Trujillo campus of Universidad César Vallejo (UCV), was hosting a delegation of physicians from Michigan State University looking to explore a potential research partnership with UCV. Briceno, residing in Trujillo, was called in and asked to be a translator for a local service opportunity they had in mind, which would help provide care for residents and increase awareness of osteopathic medicine.
“The intention [of the delegation] was to promote the profession,” said Briceno. “Because by that time, here in South America and Peru, no one knew what a D.O. was.”
These initial meetings in 2008 became the genesis of a multi-year partnership between UCV and MSU that continues today.
Roots in Community Service
Universidad César Vallejo is a Peruvian private university founded in 1991, with campuses in multiple cities across Peru, including Lima, Trujillo, Piura and Chiclayo. Originally focused on providing higher education opportunities in engineering, UCV has expanded to become one of Peru’s leading technological universities in healthcare, public administration and business. As part of its efforts to expand healthcare partnerships, UCV researchers, led by Dr. Benites, began working with MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine (MSUCOM) Detroit Medical Center Associate Dean Dr. Gary Willyerd to launch a medical service initiative helping low-income patients in the city of Huamachuco.
“We saw many patients,” recalls Dr. Briceno. “We had interactions with attending doctors, residents, medical students… It was a marvelous experience.”
This medical service opportunity, with Dr. Willyerd as the founding course director, was offered to MSUCOM medical students as an elective course to provide medical care to patients. The course still runs today as Global Health Studies’ Peru clinical immersion program, which lasts for two weeks each summer in the cities of Iquitos and Lima.
Expanding to Innovative Research
By 2013, both MSU and UCV leadership recognized that while outreach and service initiatives provided needed healthcare services to communities, long-term impact required the addition of more data-driven public health research, as noted in the program’s 2017 Global Health Report:
“Since the inception of our global outreach program, our primary focus has always been health delivery to those most in need. To better achieve this goal and supplement health delivery in our absence, we integrated an international clinical research elective in 2009.”
A breakthrough in the partnership’s research efforts was a rural survey between UCV and MSU researchers that exposed a critical environmental hazard in a Peruvian town.
"We found arsenic in the water… and the people were drinking the water contaminated with that arsenic,” said Dr. Briceno, who was a part of the joint research team that conducted the study and alerted officials to create a more robust water treatment solution, garnering the attention of Peruvian academic and government institutions.
The success of the joint research program led Dr. Benites, now the Vice President of Research at UCV, to meet with leadership at the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2015.
“We signed an agreement between UCV and MSUCOM to continue with collaboration and research,” says Dr. Benites.
The academic output from this agreement period yielded prestigious national honors, including awards for joint MSU-UCV research on biomass smoke toxicity and urine arsenic levels presented at national osteopathic seminars in Seattle (2014), Orlando (2015) and Anaheim (2016).
Low Cost, High Impact
By 2017, the MSU-UCV partnership transformed into an incubator for "frugal innovation”, focusing on developing low-cost, high-impact medical diagnostics tailored for low-resource environments. Dr. Briceno officially became an external consultant for MSU’s Global Health Institute, while Dr. Benites continued to oversee the research as Vice President of Research across all UCV campuses.
During this period of the partnership, collaborations with the MSU College of Engineering focused on four research projects:
- Nanotechnology TB Testing: Utilizing magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) for rapid tuberculosis screening at an estimated cost of $0.05 per test.
- LAMP Diagnostics: Deploying Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification for rapid detection of tropical infections in low-resource clinics.
- HPV & Cervical Cancer Prevention: Developing point-of-care screening devices and region-specific serotyping.
- Biosand Filtration: Implementing gravity-based biological filters to purify drinking water along the Amazon River.
Solidifying Relationships and Program Expansion
Executive relationship building culminated in 2018, when the owner and president of UCV travelled to East Lansing to meet MSU leadership, formalizing cross-institutional support.
Additionally, in 2023, leadership of the Peru clinical immersion program transitioned from Dr. Willyerd to MSUCOM faculty member and Global Health Institute Associate Medical Director Dr. Jodi Flanders upon his retirement. Under Dr. Flanders, the Peru program expanded its scope, serving two public hospitals in Iquitos and remote communities along the Amazon River. Today, the program is one of the most popular education abroad opportunities offered by Global Health Studies, with 30 medical students and close to 20 physicians travelling to Peru each year.
The crowning achievement of the program, according to members, is the official licensure recognition for Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine in Peru. When the partnership officially began, osteopathic medicine was not well-known in Peru. However, through the growing impact of the MSU-UCV partnership, osteopathic physicians are becoming more formally recognized throughout the country.
A Lasting Legacy
What began as a meeting of like-minded academics in 2008 has led to an 18-year alliance built on innovative research collaboration and impactful global health delivery. In July of 2026, a leadership and faculty delegation from UCV visited MSU for a leadership development workshop hosted by the Global Health Institute. The Global Health Institute is honored to be at the center of this partnership between MSU and UCV, and looks forward to many years of research, outreach and learning together.