Current HIV Research

Dr. Nafees Ahmad is Professor of Immunobiology and Director of Immunity and Infection at the College of Medicine, University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. He obtained his undergraduate and postgraduate education from the Aligarh Muslim University, India and doctorate from the Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship in HIV/AIDS from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. His research has focused on mechanisms of HIV immunopathogenesis in younger and older HIV-infected patients, including the HIV-mediated aging of the immune system. He is investigating the mechanisms of differential HIV-1 infection in younger and older populations, including the role of viral and host factors and dysregulation of T cell functions. He has authored more than 100 publications and prestigious medical school text book “Sherris Medical Microbiology”.

Paolo Bonfanti, MD, is the Director of Infectious Diseases Unit at the Alessandro Manzoni Hospital in Lecco, Italy. He received his M.D degree from the University of Pavia (Italy). Paolo Bonfanti is the coordinator of CISAI group (Italian Committee for the Study of Allergy and HIV Infection), one of the most important research network in the field of HIV infection. His research focus is the epidemiology and the clinical aspects of comorbidities in HIV positive persons.

Shilpa Buch is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience, University of Nebraska Medical Center. Her research focuses on understanding the neuropathogenesis of HIV/SIV infection using cell culture, rodents and macaques as model systems. She is the director of the Nebraska Center for Substance Abuse Research, the mission of which is to promote and enhance drug abuse research and mentor trainees in this area.

Dr. Ann Chao obtained her Ph.D. degree in epidemiology, from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. She joined the Center for Global Health, National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Jan 2012 as its representative in East Asia, based at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China. Since 2017, Dr. Chao has been based at the U.S. Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. She supports cooperation in basic, population, and clinical cancer research; and training, cancer control and prevention implementation, and health surveillance. Moreover, her research at the SEER New Mexico Tumor Registry and at the American Cancer Society (Cancer Prevention Studies) focused on modifiable lifestyle and familial risk factors associated with cancer incidence, mortality, and early detection.

Dr. Roberto Di Santo is a Full Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, “Sapienza” University of Rome Italy. He holds a Master degree in Chemistry and in Pharmacy from “Sapienza” University of Rome. Prof. Di Santo research is focused primarily on drug design and synthesis of new molecular entities related with biological activities. He devoted particular efforts in the discovery of antimicrobial and antitumor agents. Most part of his scientific activity is focused on compounds active against HIV targets like integrase, ribonuclease H and polymerase functions of the reverse transcriptase, and protease. Dr. Di Santo is Author and co-author of books and over 130 publications and patents.

Gabriella d’Ettorre is Associated Professor in Infectious Diseases at the University Sapienza Rome, Italy and she is supervisor for the mamagement of about 1000 HIV positive outpatient. Professor d’Ettorre has carried out several original investigations in the field of pathogenesis, innovative treatment and comorbidities of HIV infection. She is author of over 150 publications on peer- reviewed journals and actually her mayor current research interest is focused on the study of microbioma in HIV.

Rita B. Effros earned her Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Pennsylvania, under the mentorship of Peter Doherty, 1996 Nobel Laureate. Her thesis work on immunity to viruses continues to be her research focus, with special emphasis on telomeres, the regions at the ends of chromosomes, which shorten during cell division. Based on studies of telomere/telomerase dynamics in human T cells, her laboratory was one of the first to propose that HIV disease may involve accelerated aging of the immune system. She was the 2007 winner of the prestigious Kleemeier Award by the Gerontological Society of America, and she served as the 2015 President of that organization.

Guido Ferrari, M.D., is Associate Professor of Surgery and Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Ferrari received his M.D. degree from the University of Genoa (Italy) where he also completed his residency in Medical Microbiology. Dr. Ferrari has been working in the field of HIV-1 clinical and basic research since 1985 to characterize the ontogeny and breadth of the immune responses. He has published over 125 scientific manuscripts. His interest focuses on identifying protective epitopes that can be recognized by CD8 T cell and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxic responses and to leverage this knowledge to develop new vaccine and immune therapeutic strategies.

Dr. Tracy Fischer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. Her research focus is on the role of inflammatory changes and immune dysregulation in HIV neuropathogenesis in the cART era and how altered immune function influences the development and maintenance of viral persistence in tissue macrophages, including microglia in brain. To advance our current understanding of HIV-associated neurocognitive impairment persistence among infected persons with virus suppression, Dr. Fischer is also exploring how inflammation is sustained in brain of HIV infected patients under successful pharmacological intervention or without detectable virus production in brain.

Dr. Feng Gao is a professor of Medicine at Duke University and the director of the National Engineering Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine at Jilin University in China. He has a long-standing interest in elucidating the origin, evolution and genetic variation of human and simian immunodeficiency viruses, as well as in studying gene function, pathogenesis and vaccines of HIV/SIV from the evolutionary perspective. He currently studies maturation mechanisms of broadly neutralizing antibodies in humans and non-human primates, impacts of immune escape mutations on viral fitness, development of autoreactivity during neutralizing antibody maturation, and roles of maternal neutralizing antibodies in mother-to-child transmission of HIV-1.

Dr. Garcia is currently a Professor of Medicine in the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases (IGHID), and the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine all at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also an Oliver Smithies Investigator. Throughout his career, Dr. Garcia has made seminal contributions to the understanding of HIV pathogenesis, specifically the function of Nef, which is an important determinant of HIV pathogenesis and disease progression. More recently, Dr. Garcia’s group has established an outstanding track record in the development, implementation and use of humanized mice. Since their landmark publications describing the humanized BLT TOM and more recent MOM mouse models have been widely used to address key questions of HIV infection, transmission, prevention, and more recently, persistence and cure.

Dr. Gendelman obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Sciences and Russian Studies with honors from Muhlenberg College and his M.D. from the Pennsylvania State University-Hershey Medical Center where he was the 1999 Distinguished Alumnus. He is a physician-scientist with more than 34 years of research experience and occupying senior leadership positions. Currently Dr. Gendelman is the Chairman of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska USA. Dr. Gendelman has published greater than 400 peer-reviewed scientific publications, edited nine books and monographs, and is named inventor of eight issued U.S. patents. Dr. Gendelman was the founding Editor (1993) and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology, published by Springer.

Associate Professor David Harrich is Group Leader of HIV and Molecular Virology at QIMR Berghofer MRI, where is a Senior Research Fellow. He earned a PhD at UCLA in experimental Pathology and undertook postdoctoral training at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre. He has published 70+ papers most of them on HIV-1 molecular biology and virus replication.

Dr. Dushyantha Jayaweera received his M.D. degree in Sri Lanka, and trained in medicine in Sri Lanka and Great Britain, and at Loyola University of Chicago, joining the Miller School faculty in 1992. He has been named as Executive Dean for Research and Research Education of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He had been serving as interim Executive Dean since September 2015. Jayaweera is also a professor of medicine, and he has more than 20 years of clinical and research experience with HIV. He maintains an active clinical practice, serving as Director of the HIV/HCV co-infection clinic and leading numerous industry-funded trials of medications for patients with viral diseases.

Dr. Tal Kafri is the professor of Microbiology & Immunology Gene Therapy Center. Currenlty he is the Director, at Lenti Viral Vector Core, Lenti-shRNA Core Facility. He has comlted his PhD. His filed of interest include the needs to efficiently deliver genetic cargo and to maintain long-term transgene expression in vivo prompted the development of the HIV-1 based vector system.

By means of introduction, I am the Director of Research at the George Mason University Biodefense Program in the Washington D.C proper. I have obtained more than $13.2 M in funding (NIH, DOD, DOE, and Keck) since my departure from NIH in 2000. I have published 198 peer-reviewed manuscripts (h index = 53), and served as an editorial board and reviewer for Retrovirology, JBC, J. Virol, Virology, NAR, 4 PLoS Journals, Cell, Molecular Cell, Nature, Medicine, and Science Translational Medicine. I am also a regular NIH study section member and have served on 141 panels since 2000.

Dr. David A. Katzenstein, M.D. completed his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of California San Diego. Dr. Katzenstein serves as Senior Advisor for Laboratory Monitoring for Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, where he focuses his work on developing methods and strategies for scaling up low-cost diagnostics related to HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis. He is also a Professor of Medicine in Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. His current research is focused on operational studies of antiretroviral therapy, drug resistance in different subtypes and the molecular evolution of HIV. He has authored/co-authored over 285 publications, and his total citations are of a remarkable number, i.e. around 15,850.

Professor Stephen Kent trained as an infectious diseases physician, immunologist and HIV vaccine scientist in Melbourne and the USA. He is a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne, based at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infectious Diseases. He has over 200 scientific publications describing promising vaccine concepts for HIV and exciting leads on analysing immune responses and immune evasion from HIV that provide unique insights into the usefulness of various immune responses. He remains active in infectious diseases clinical medicine at the Alfred Hospital and Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, caring for people with HIV/AIDS and assisting in the clinical development of new vaccine strategies.

Dr. Kamel Khalili is the Laura H. Carnell Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. He has actively studied the neuropathogeneis of human viruses, particularly HIV-1, for more than 30 years. He has authored more than 427 manuscripts and has been the recipient of more than $80 million in grant funds from federal and non-federal sources. He has made numerous contributions to the field of neurovirology and most recently, Dr. Khalili and his colleagues have pioneered gene editing technology to eradicate HIV-1 from host cell DNA.

Dr. Lewis is a Professor of Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases at the McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science center in Houston. Dr. Lewis received her PhD in Microbiology in 1978 from the University of Arizona. She did an NIH supported postdoctoral fellowship on the genetics of autoimmune disease and then became a faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Lewis is a cellular immunologist who has studied HIV pathogenesis for over 30 years. She was one of the first to identify CD8 dysfunction and cell death in HIV infected patients, one of the first to realize that much more HIV was being produced in vivo and has recently focused on understanding mechanisms responsible for metabolic dysfunction in HIV infected patients. This novel work shows that HIV infected immune cells are in diverse adipose tissues, the HIV is infectious and that adipose is likely a sanctuary for HIV that will be difficult to clear by CD8 responses or via ART. Dr. Lewis has served on many NIH study sections and was Chair of the AIDS Immunopathogenesis study section from 2009-2011. She also served on the NIAID council from 2002-2006. She is the author of more than 190 papers and several book chapters.

Dr. Lewis is a Professor of Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases at the McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science center in Houston. Dr. Lewis received her PhD in Microbiology in 1978 from the University of Arizona. She did an NIH supported postdoctoral fellowship on the genetics of autoimmune disease and then became a faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Lewis is a cellular immunologist who has studied HIV pathogenesis for over 30 years. She was one of the first to identify CD8 dysfunction and cell death in HIV infected patients, one of the first to realize that much more HIV was being produced in vivo and has recently focused on understanding mechanisms responsible for metabolic dysfunction in HIV infected patients. This novel work shows that HIV infected immune cells are in diverse adipose tissues, the HIV is infectious and that adipose is likely a sanctuary for HIV that will be difficult to clear by CD8 responses or via ART. Dr. Lewis has served on many NIH study sections and was Chair of the AIDS Immunopathogenesis study section from 2009-2011. She also served on the NIAID council from 2002-2006. She is the author of more than 190 papers and several book chapters.

Dr. Li is a tenured Professor at the School of Biological Sciences and Nebraska Center for Virology in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr. Li obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Virology from the Beijing University, China. Dr. Li has more than 20 years of experience in studying HIV-1 pathogenesis, transmission, microbicide, and vaccine development and his technical expertise includes the use of SIV-rhesus macaque model, human specimens, humanized-BLT (bone marrow liver and thymus) mouse model, and single-cell in situ analyses. Dr. Li has published extensively on HIV/SIV transmission, pathogenesis and prevention, including one paper in Science and two papers in Nature as the lead author.

Paolo Maggi. MD is the Director of the Day-Hospital of the Institute of Infectious Disease of the University of Bari – Italy,and professor for the Specialty School Clinic of Infectious Diseases in the University of Bari.He is author or co-author of more than 300 scientific papers and of 8 chapters of medicine books in the field of clinical parasitology, tropical medicine, viral hepatitis and HIV.His mayor current research interest is focused on the premature ageing, cardiovascular and renal comorbidities in HIV positive persons.

Robert (Bob) Magnani has 38 years’ experience in the international health & development arena, during which time he has worked in 40 countries around the globe. He is currently based in Jakarta, Indonesia where he is a Visiting Scholar at the Atma Jaya Catholic University Center for AIDS Research and works as a consultant to the World Bank, UNAIDS and UNFPA. He has over 75 professional publications to his credit (54 in peer-reviewed journals). His career spans 11 years working in government, 13 years in academia and 14 years in the private/INGO sector.

Dr. Mansky is currently a Professor and Director of the Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. The Mansky research group has an intense interest in the use of interdisciplinary approaches (spanning disciplines including molecular and cell biology, pharmacology, biophysics, medicinal chemistry) to the study HIV-1 and HTLV-1 replication, particularly aspects relating to 1) viral mutagenesis, genetic variation, and evolution and 2) virus particle assembly, release and maturation. Dr. Mansky also serves as Director of the Institute for Molecular Virology Training Program, which seeks to train the next generation of scientists who will study virus replication and pathogenesis as well as help discover new antiviral drugs and vaccines.

Besides her teaching activity in the Course of Microbiology for medical students and Laboratory technicians, she has also served as acting professor of Microbiology in several Specialization Medical Schools, in specialist diploma, and practical/theoretic training course mostly focused on viral diagnosis and molecular biology for HIV characterization, tropism and drug resistance mutations. Her research activities have focused on development and application of innovative serological and virological methods for HIV diagnosis, drug resistance and studies of mechanisms regarding the pathogenesis of HIV-1-induced lesions, such as i) analysis of role of extracellular Tat and gp120 proteins in the evolution of HIV-1 infection.

Dr. Andrew P. Rice received a B.A. in Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a PhD. in Biology from Brandeis University. Dr. Rice conducted Postdoctoral studies at the University of Cambridge and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (London). Dr. Rice was on the Scientific Staff at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. He was recruited to Baylor College of Medicine in 1990 and is currently the Nancy Chang Professor in the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology. Dr. Rice’s research interest, from this PhD studies to the present, has been the study viral-host interactions. Dr. Rice has over 100 scientific publications.

Shankar, an alumni of University of Madras, YRG CARE, Linkoping University & University of Malaya, is working on certain persistently-infecting pathogens (HIV, TB, melioidosis etc), and immune evasion mechanisms adopted by these agents in the host. Currently, the Head at the Department of Life Sciences, Central University of Tamil Nadu, he is also the Editor of PLoS One, BMC Infectious Diseases, Medicine and BMC Immunology. He has active collaborations with global researchers from leading research institutions.

Hugo Soudeyns trained in microbiology and immunology and has been active in the field of HIV/AIDS research. In January 2000, Dr Soudeyns opened a research unit devoted to the study of viral immunopathology at Centre de recherche du CHU Sainte-Justine. In collaboration with the Centre maternel et infantile sur le sida (CHU Sainte-Justine), the work of Dr. Soudeyns has led to the identification of important differences in cell-mediated immunity between adults and children, and contributed to the understanding of the pathogenesis of pediatric HIV infection. the primary research interests are mainly focused on mother-to-child transmission of viral diseases.

Dr. Paul Spearman is the Albert B. Sabin Professor and Director of Infectious Diseases at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. He directs a laboratory working on basic aspects of HIV biology, including HIV assembly, host restriction factors that limit HIV replication, and the development of HIV vaccines. Dr. Spearman has served on numerous NIH study sections and currently serves on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Spearman holds leadership roles in the field of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, and is President-elect of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS).

Dr. Kok Keng Tee is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine in University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia. He received his PhD in molecular virology and evolutionary biology in UM and the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, and postdoctoral fellowship at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, USA. His research focus is on the genomic epidemiology, evolutionary dynamics and transmission network of rapidly evolving viruses including HIV, hepatitis and respiratory viruses. He has published over 85 research articles and served as Editor for PLoS One, Virology Journal and Frontiers in Microbiology.

Prof. Enzo Tramontano obtained his degree at the University of Cagliari (Italy), spent 4 years at the Department of Pharmacology of Yale University (USA) as Visiting scientist and was then recruited at the University of Cagliari where he is currently full professor of Microbiology leading the Laboratory of Molecular Virology of the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences. In addition, Prof. Tramontano is presently serving as Dean of the Faculty of Biology and Pharmacy and Coordinator of the PhD program in Life, Environmental and Drug Sciences of the University of Cagliari. His main fields of expertise are the development of antiviral drugs, the validation of viral proteins as drug target and the study of endogenous retroviruses.

Sten H. Vermund, MD, PhD, is Dean of the Yale School of Public Health, the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health, and Professor of Pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine. He is a pediatrician and infectious disease epidemiologist with his appointment in the Department of Microbial Diseases. His research focus is on diseases of low and middle income countries, and on health disparities in the U.S. His research has focused on health care access, adolescent reproductive health, and prevention of HIV transmission, both mother-to-child and among adolescents/adults.

Zunyou Wu is the Director of the National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, China CDC and an Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at UCLA. He is a leader in the field of HIV prevention strategies and oversees overall technical implementation of detection, prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS in China. He has published over 400 academic papers, 201 of which in international journals, including Science, Lancet. Dr. Wu has received many honors including the 2005 International Rolleston Award for implementing harm reduction in China, “Hall of Fame” of 2006 UCLA School of Public Health's Alumni, and the UNAIDS Gold Medal in 2008.

Dr. Richard Y. Zhao is a Professor of Pathology, Microbiology-Immunology, Global Health and Human Virology, and the Division Head of Molecular Pathology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. from Oregon State University, and postdoctoral training at Columbia University. He was on the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine where he received an endowed chair as the Bernard L. Mirkin PhD/MD Research Scholar. Dr. Zhao’s research interest is to study virus-host interactions, viral pathogenicity and drug resistance as well as antiviral drug development.

Stefanos Bonovas has completed a research fellowship in Biostatistics at Department of Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics, University of Central Greece (2012), and a second research fellowship in Clinical Trials at Department of Biomedical Sciences for Health, State University of Milan (2015), to which he is currently affiliated. He is Assistant Professor of Medical Statistics. He is expert in the field of Public Health, Epidemiologic Studies, Infectious Disease Control and Prevention, Meta-Analysis, Systematic Reviews and Observational Studies.

Ronald Swanstrom worked as Director at UNC Center for AIDS Research. He also has joint appointment in the field of Microbiology and Immunology. R. Swanstrom's has made many scientific contributions while being affiliated with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has a long-standing interest in HIV-1 replication and pathogenesis, including the use of genetic diversity to study important biological questions surrounding HIV-1. Genetic diversity is the result of evolution in a changing environment.