Sumit Chanda, PhD
Director and Professor
Immunity and Pathogenesis
Program Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute

“Systems-level Analysis of HIV-Host Interactions”

Monday, April 8, 2019
Noon – 1 p.m. CT
Stonewall Conference Rooms
625 N Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60611

Sumit Chanda earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2001, and received his post-doctoral training at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF). He subsequently transitioned to a Group Leader position, and established his research group in the Division of Cellular Genomics at GNF. In 2007, he joined the Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute as an Associate Professor. Dr. Chanda also holds an Adjunct Professor appointment at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, as well as a Visiting Scientist position at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation.

RSVP Here:

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Una O’Doherty, MD, PhD
Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

“The HIV Reservoir Is Neither Stable nor Invisible”

Friday, April 5, 2019
Noon – 1 p.m. CT
Stonewall Conference Rooms
625 N Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60611

Dr. Una O’Doherty is a Professor and an Apheresis Physician in the Division of Transfusion Medicine and Therapeutic Pathology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. O’Doherty studies how treatment resistant reservoirs of HIV are formed and maintained in HIV infected individuals. In the process of these studies, her group discovered that latent infection is favored when T cells in the quiescent state are infected without activation.  Over several years her group showed that directly infected T cells provide a model for the treatment resistant reservoir. This in vitro work led to discoveries which implied that reservoir persistence was not simply controlled by its visibility. Her current work focuses on selection pressures in vivo in a small cohort of individuals chronically infected with HIV and maintained on antiviral therapy.  By performing massive proviral sequencing on banked samples from this cohort over time, her group elucidated the presence of two opposing selective forces in vivo that appear to be driven in part by transcription.

RSVP Here:

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Nanette Benbow, MAS, BSIS Core Co-Director, will join Alan Greenberg, MD, MPH (DC CFAR) and April Petit MD, MPH (Tennessee CFAR), in an inter-CFAR webinar detailing successful partnerships between CFAR investigators and public health departments.

The University of North Carolina Center for AIDS Research (UNC-CFAR) hosts the inter-CFAR webinar series.

You may register for the webinar here.

In 1999, a man came into San Francisco City Clinic and was diagnosed with syphilis. He had had sex with many men but didn’t know their names, although they were all members of the same SF-based AOL chat room. The rest is history. From early interventions such as inSPOT, online partner notification, to modern mobile apps and social media, digital programs continue to show much promise in stemming the tide of the epidemic.

In this talk, Deb will cover early digital HIV prevention program development in concert with the SF community, evidence-based studies and literature reviews, and how-tos for more recent work on social media sites like Snapchat and Instagram.

Deb Levine, BSW, MA is the Founder and Former Executive Director of YTH (youth+tech+health) from 2001-2014. Currently, she is the Principal at her new consulting company, Tech Strategy Consultants. She has won many awards for her work in digital health for youth, including a White House – HHS award for a mobile app for college students, and a citation in former President Clinton’s report on Education and the Internet for her ground-breaking work on Columbia University’s Go Ask Alice. She has degrees from Cornell University and New York University, and is raising two teenagers in Oakland, CA.

This event is Co-sponsored with the The Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing (ISGMH).

Please RSVP Here. 

Dr. Jessica Ridgway and Professor Rayid Ghani will present the results of their projects funded by CFAR Pilot awards. These projects funded by CFAR will focus on the HIV-related predictive analytics and machine learning.

“Predictive Analytics for Retention in HIV Care” 

Jessica P. Ridgway, MD, MS
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine
Section of Infectious Diseases and Global Health
The University of Chicago

Dr. Ridgway is the Director of Predictive Analytics for the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination at the University of Chicago and her research focuses on the use of informatics and predictive analytics to improve HIV treatment and prevention. She is particularly interested in how electronic medical record data can be harnessed to improve HIV prevention and care across the HIV care continuum.

“Combining Human Knowledge and Machine Learning to Increase Retention in Care for HIV Patients” 

Rayid Ghani
Research Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science 
Senior Fellow, Harris School of Public Policy 
Director, Center for Data Science and Public Policy 
The University of Chicago

Professor Rayid Ghani is the Director of the Center for Data Science and Public Policy, Research Director and Senior Fellow at the Computation Institute, and a Senior Fellow at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Ghani’s work has spanned from general machine learning and data science to privacy preserving data analysis, text analysis, semi-supervised learning, active learning, information retrieval, Natural Language Processing, and knowledge management. Most of Ghani’s work has focused on developing and using machine learning & data mining approaches to solve large-scale problems in corporate, political, and non-profit areas.

Francois Villinger, DVM
Professor,Department of Biology 
Director, New Iberia Research Center
University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Dr. François Villinger is a DVM from the University of Zurich, with over 30 years of research in infectious diseases, vaccines and immune responses using Nonhuman primate models of human diseases. Before taking the lead at the New Iberia Research Center in late 2015, he was a Professor of Pathology at the Emory School of Medicine and Associate Director for Pathology at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta. His main research focus has been on HIV models, and the development of tools and reagents specific for nonhuman primate investigations. Recently he has spearheaded a whole body to single cell analysis of immune mechanisms and viral dynamics in real time.

Stephanie Masiello Schuette, PhD
Director of Program Operations
HIV/STI Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Research
Chicago Department of Public Health

Dr. Schuette will present recent findings from the CDPH 2018 HIV / STI Surveillance Report and provide new insight into the HIV epidemic in Chicago.

Drs. Joshua Leonard and Chisu Song will present the results of their Third Coast CFAR pilot projects.

“Engineered extracellular vesicle-mediated delivery of targeted nucleases to inactivate HIV proviral DNA”

Joshua L. Leonard, PhD
Associate Professor
Chemical and Biological Engineering
Northwestern University McCormick School of Engineering

Joshua L. Leonard, PhD is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Enginering at Northwestern University McCormick School of Engineering. His research group works at the interface of systems biology and synthetic biology in order to probe and program the function of complex, multicellular systems to develop transformative biotechnologies and enable a new paradigm of design-driven medicine. Using the tools of synthetic biology, biomolecular engineering, computational systems biology, and gene therapy, they develop technologies including programmable cell-based “devices,” immune therapies for cancer and chronic disease, smart vaccines, biosensors for global health applications, and tools for advanced metabolic engineering. By bringing an engineering approach to the investigation, design, and construction of biological systems, Dr. Leonard’s research group is advancing the frontiers of design-driven medicine to address unmet medical needs and create safe, effective, and long-lasting treatment options that improve both quantity and quality of life.

“Regulation of  APOBEC3 proteins: Implication for HIV and Cancer”

Chisu Song, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Medicine, Infectious Diseases
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Chisu Song, PhD is a research assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Northwestern University. Dr. Song received his doctorate at the University of Alabama in Virology in 2001. He completed his postdoctoral in microbiology and Hematology-Oncology at the University of Alabama, and Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt University.

Symposium Overview

Join us for the Annual Third Coast CFAR Symposium Ending the HIV Epidemic: Think Globally, Act Locally. This multidisciplinary symposium will draw important connections between HIV research in global settings and the lessons researchers can apply to their domestic work. Examples of the “global to local” approach will include innovations in HIV testing, prevention and care, as well as implementation science approaches to scale up of new interventions, and the role of research on non-communicable diseases and HIV.

Symposium Information

The Annual Third Coast CFAR Symposium, Ending the HIV Epidemic: Think Globally, Act Locally, will take place at the Gordon Center for Integrative Science on Thursday, November 1, 2018.

Announcement for registration and call for abstracts to be released in August 2018.

Third Coast Center for AIDS Research
625 N Michigan Ave.
Suite 1400
Chicago, IL 60611

Gordon Center for Integrative Science
The University of Chicago
929 E. 57^th Street
Chicago, IL 60637

Judith S. Currier, MD, MSc
Professor of Medicine Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases
Co-Director Center for AIDS Research and Education Center (CARE)
Department of Medicine University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Cardiovascular Disease in HIV: Mechanisms and Potential Interventions

Monday, October 22, 2018
Noon – 1 p.m.
Stonewall Conference Rooms
625 N Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60611

Dr. Currier is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Co-Director of the Center for AIDS Research and Education Center (CARE) in the Department of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is Chair of the NIH sponsored AIDS Clinical Trials Group. Her research has focused on HIV therapeutics and long-term complications of HIV disease with an emphasis on sex differences and antiretroviral therapy, cardiovascular disease, and women’s health.

J.D. Smith, PhD and Nanette Benbow, MAS will identify the proportion and characteristics of HIV-related implementation research studies funded by NIH, discuss multiple implementation research methods used to study interventions targeting various points in the HIV prevention and care continuums, and present potential opportunities for next steps. If you would like consultation in implementation science methods or research, please contact the Third Coast CFAR’s Behavioral, Social, and Implementation Sciences (BSIS) core by emailing cfar@northwestern.edu.

J.D. Smith, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Preventative Medicine
Associate Director
Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology (Ce-PIM)
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

 Nanette Benbow, MAS
Research Assistant Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences 
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Nanette Benbow, MAS is a research assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; Director of the Third Coast Center for AIDS Research End HIV Scientific Working Group; and member of the Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology. Her research interests include the use of epidemiologic and network modeling to improve HIV prevention and care continua; health equity for Latinos and sexual and gender minorities; and developing academic-public health partnerships in implementing evidence-based interventions that reduce HIV incidence in local settings. Before joining the Northwestern Faculty in 2016, Ms. Benbow was deputy commissioner of the STI/HIV Services Bureau of the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) where she oversaw the development and implementation of prevention and care interventions.

George J. Greene, Ph.D., (he/him) is the associate director of the Evaluation, Data Integration, and Technical Assistance Program (EDIT) and faculty in the Department of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University. Dr. Greene’s research interests focus on health disparities in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adolescents and young adults, with a particular emphasis on ethnic/racial disparities in the HIV epidemic. His research aims to: (a) understand HIV risk and protective factors from intersectionality and developmental-ecological perspectives; (b) employ community-based participatory research approaches to build upon the needs and strengths of communities to identify and develop effective interventions; (c) design technology- and Internet-based approaches for observation and intervention; (d) adopt theoretically-driven program evaluation approaches to appropriately evaluate HIV prevention research and service efforts; and (e) apply qualitative and mixed methods approaches to research and program evaluation efforts

Drs. Hossein Ardehali and Matthew J. Feinstein will present the results of their Third Coast CFAR pilot projects.

“HIV and Diastolic Dysfunction”

Hossein Ardehali, MD, PhD
Director
Feinberg Cardiovascular and Renal Research Institute –
Center for Molecular Cardiology
Professor
Medicine (Cardiology) and Pharmacology
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Dr. Hossein Ardehali, professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology and of Pharmacology, leads a lab committed to investigating the role of mitochondria and cellular metabolism in cardiovascular disease. As director of the Center for Molecular Cardiology at the Feinberg Cardiovascular Research Institute (FCVRI), he also supports overall research efforts in molecular cardiology throughout the medical school.

“Causes and Characteristics of Cardiac Dysfunction and Heart Failure in HIV”

Matthew J. Feinstein, MD, MS
Assistant Professor
Medicine and Preventive Medicine Division of Cardiology
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Dr. Matthew Feinstein is a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine and an assistant professor at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine with a dual appointment in the Department of Medicine and Department of Preventive Medicine. Dr. Feinstein is a physician-scientist with expertise in the epidemiology and prevention of cardiovascular diseases as well as cardiovascular complications of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and chronic inflammatory diseases.

Jessica Ridgway, MD, MS
Assistant Professor, Section of Infectious Diseases and Global Health
University of Chicago Medicine

Ridgway’s primary research focus is the impact of technology on healthcare epidemiology, particularly the use of informatics in infection control and prevention. She develops and studies syndromic surveillance algorithms using electronic health records. She also has a particular interest in the epidemiology of multidrug-resistant bacteria, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and multidrug-resistant Gram-negative organism.

Chad J Achenbach, MD, MPH
Associate Professor, Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and Preventive Medicine
Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern University

Dr. Chad Achenbach is an Assistant Professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Center for Global Health. Dr. Achenbach is a specialist in Infectious Diseases with clinical interests in the treatment of HIV infection and co-infections. He is currently participating in several research projects and training programs through the Center for Global Health, including PEPFAR Nigeria, NU AITRP and the Eramune study.

Rahm Gummuluru PhD
Associate Professor,
Department of Microbiology,
Boston University School of Medicine

Research in my laboratory is broadly focused on the mechanisms of cell-­to-­cell  and  cell-­associated  HIV-­1 transmission with an emphasis on interactions of HIV with myeloid cells (monocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells) and the implications of these interactions on systemic dissemination of HIV. I obtained a Ph.D. at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY where I studied mechanisms responsible for the rapid immunopathology and disease progression observed in SIVsmmPBj14-­infected  pig-­tailed  macaques.  As a post-­ doctoral fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, I focused on HIV-­1 pathogenesis, with an emphasis on host interactions of the HIV-­1 accessory protein, Vpr and the mechanism by which Vpr enhances  HIV-­1  replication.  I  am now an Associate  Professor in the Department of Microbiology at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), and Co-­Director of the Developmental Core for the Lifespan/BU/BMC CFAR. My research has been focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms that govern interactions of HIV with myeloid cells. My laboratory has considerable expertise in molecular virology, identifying mechanisms of   HIV-­induced immunopathology and cell biology of HIV   infection. We were the first to identify the glycosphingolipid,   GM3, present in the virus particle membrane and the myeloid cell-­specific siglec, CD169/Siglec-­1, as the ligand-­receptor interaction necessary for capture of HIV-­1 particles by DCs,  and transfer of the captured virus particles to the myeloid cell-­mediated trans infection pathway across virological synapses. The discovery of the GM3 – CD169 mechanism of virus particle recognition by my laboratory has paved the way for our recent  efforts to develop nanoparticle-based myeloid  cell-­specific therapeutics for targeted delivery of  anti-­retrovirals to secondary lymphoid tissues.  In parallel,  we are focused on identifying mechanisms that drive persistent induction of innate immune activation in HIV-­infected myeloid cells, with the ultimate goal of developing immunotherapeutic approaches to diminish HIV-­induced chronic immune activation, the main driver of HANA conditions in cART-­suppressed individuals.

Patrick Janulis, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Social Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine
Quantitative Methodologist, Third Coast Center for AIDS Research
Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing
Northwestern University 

Patrick Janulis, Ph.D., (he/him) is an assistant professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences and also serves as the quantitative methodologist for the Third Coast Center for AIDS Research. He received his doctorate in Ecological-Community Psychology from Michigan State University where he conducted research on the impact of substance use on HIV and hepatitis C virus risk behavior. More generally, his research examines the intersection of HIV, drug use, and LGBTQ health. His early work focused on using latent variable modeling to improve the measurement of HIV risk behavior and understanding within-person variation in risk behavior across different environments and social circumstances. More recently this work has shifted to leveraging modern data science approaches to measure, understand, and intervene on the root causes in the spread of HIV. Currently, he works on RADAR, a longitudinal cohort study of young men who have sex with men (YMSM) which includes longitudinal network data collection in effort to better understand how social, sexual, and drug use networks effect the health of YMSM. In addition, he serves as a Co-Investigator on the Network Canvas project which aims to develop a novel software suite for capturing social network and other complex data in effort to better understand the spread of HIV.

Jenny Trinitapoli, PhD
Director, Center for International Social Science Research (CISSR)
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology University of Chicago

The AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is now nearly 40 years old. After a long battle, the standard metrics have started to point to good news: new infections are down, prevalence has stabilized, life-saving anti-retrovirals are becoming widely available, and AIDS-related mortality has declined. Using panel data from Tsogolo la Thanzi study collected in Balaka, Malawi between 2009 and 2015, I argue that in the wake of pandemic AIDS, an epidemic of uncertainty persists. AIDS-related uncertainty, I argue, is measurable, pervasive, and impervious to biomedical solutions. In Malawi, the consequences of uncertainty are salient to multiple domains of life including relationship stability, fertility, health, and well-being. Even as HIV is transformed from a progressive, fatal infection to a chronic and manageable condition, the accompanying epidemic of uncertainty remains central to understanding the demographic future of this part of the world.

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Dr. Trinitapoli’s training and background is in two areas: social demography & the sociology of religion. Bridging these two fields, her work features the demographer’s characteristic concern with data and denominators and an insistence on connecting demographic processes to questions of meaning. She asks questions about data quality.

She has written extensively on the role of religion in the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, but religion permeates her research, even when it isn’t present as a variable. Since 2008 she have been the principal investigator of Tsogolo la Thanzi (TLT)—an ongoing longitudinal study of young adults in Malawi. Demographers use terms like “relationship instability” and “fertility trajectories,” but very plainly: TLT asks how young adults negotiate relationships, sex, and childbearing with a severe AIDS epidemic swirling around them. The TLT research centre, located in Balaka (Southern Malawi), is staffed by over two dozen talented locals and supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Northwestern University location change:
View in Lakeshore Conference Room 27th Floor 625 N Michigan Chicago, IL 60611

Celeste Watkins-Hayes received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University in June 2003. She also holds an M.A. in Sociology from Harvard and a B.A. from Spelman College, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1996. Celeste is a Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University and former Chair of the Department of African American Studies. In addition to her faculty appointments, Watkins-Hayes is a Faculty Fellow at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research and Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health.

Watkins-Hayes has published numerous articles in the areas of sociology, African American Studies, and public policy studies.  Her book, The New Welfare Bureaucrats: Entanglements of Race, Class, and Policy Reform (University of Chicago Press, 2009) is an examination of how welfare officers navigate the increasingly tangled political and emotional terrain of their jobs. The book was a finalist for the 2009 C. Wright Mills Book Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the 2011 Max Weber Book Award from the American Sociological Association.

Dr. Watkins-Hayes is also principal investigator of The Health, Hardship and Renewal Study, which explores the economic and social survival strategies of women living with HIV/AIDS in the Chicago area. Results from that study will be presented in the book, Remaking a Life, Reversing an Epidemic: HIV/AIDS and the Politics of Transformation (under contract at the University of California Press). In 2009, she received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Investigator Award and a National Science Foundation Early CAREER Award to conduct this research.

Watkins-Hayes has published numerous articles in journals and edited volumes including, The Annual Review of Sociology, Social Problems, and The DuBois Review. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Spelman College and the Advisory Board of the Spelman College Women’s Research and Resource Center and has been profiled in Essence, USA Today Weekend, Chicago Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Dr. Mehta’s current work focuses on identifying bio-behavioral risks and pathways for STIs and HIV. Additionally, her work in antimicrobial resistant N. gonorrhoeaehas provided support to national STI treatment guidelines in Kenya. Her teaching interests include core epidemiologic concepts and the epidemiology of sexually transmitted infections.

Dr. Mehta is the principal investigator of an NIH-funded 5-year study of the effect of the penile microbiome on women’s risk Bacterial vaginosis, genital ulcer disease, and genital epithelial trauma. This study, Afya jozi, Afya jamii, will eventually enroll 204 heterosexual couples in Kisumu, Kenya, and follow them for one year. Over four times points, the male and female genital microbiomes and local immune markers of inflammation will be measured to understand how the penile microbiome contributes to STIs. Behavioral assessments used in Kenya have been adapted for a U.S. population and are currently being assessed in Chicago and the Dominican Republic, for cross-national comparison.

Brett B. Williams, MD
Rush University Medical Center

Dr. Willams’ primary research interest has been identifying risk factors for persistent immune activation in chronic HIV infection and the mechanisms by which intestinal microbiota contribute to this immune activation. Dr. Willam is an active clinical investigator in the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), with a research interest in the role of the intestinal microbiome in immune activation and HIV disease pathogenesis. He is a member of the microbiome focus group and protocol development co-chair of A5352, which is tasked with evaluating the effects of probiotic on microbial translocation, the mucosal immune response and the intestinal microbiome. Dr. Willams’ also an investigator for A5346 which is a randomized controlled trial of sitagliptin to reduce immune activation in chronic HIV infection. He is the primary investigator of a privately funded study at Rush University Medical Center the goal of which is to describe the changes in the gut microbiome and metabolome which occur in HIV patients following initiation of antiretroviral therapy and relationships between these changes and serologic markers of immune activation.

Steven Bosinger, PhD
Yerkes Researcher

Steve received his PhD from the University of Western Ontario in Microbiology & Immunology and had focused on studying the pathogenic events in early HIV and SIV infection.  He did his post-doc at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. Guido Silvestri where he began his work studying how African monkey species avoid AIDS despite lifelong SIV infection, and his post-doctoral work he was awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Fellowship, and one of 5 Young Investigator Awards from the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise. In 2010 he moved to Emory University and the Yerkes Primate Center as a Research Faculty.  In 2012 he founded a Core laboratory specializing in applying genomic technology to the study of primates and the study immune system. In 2016, he was appointed to the Department of Pathology & Lab Medicine.

Dr. Bosinger’s contributions to AIDS research have demonstrated the role of interferon in AIDS pathogenesis and how it can be manipulated to reduce harmful inflammation and enable cure, and the development of genomic tools for the study of the immune system. Today he’s going to talk to about some exciting new data in the monkey model that sheds light on the immunopathogenesis of AIDS.

Irini Sereti, MD, MHS
Chief HIV Pathogenesis Section, Laboratory of Immunoregulation
National Institutes of Health

Dr. Irini Sereti has worked in the area of HIV immunopathogenesis with a focus on the host and the immunologic aspects of disease from the beginning of her Infectious diseases fellowship at NIH. Most of Sereti’s projects as a fellow initially and as an independent investigator later on addressed aspects of immune activation and dysregulation in HIV and immune-based interventions to abrogate it with a special focus on severely immunosuppressed HIV persons with very low CD4 T cell counts and opportunistic infections (OIs). Many of Sereti’s studies have also addressed the immune recovery of these patients after initiation of anti-retroviral therapy. Through her HIV work Sereti started studying patients with Idiopathic CD4 lymphopenia (ICL) who are also immunosuppressed (low CD4 counts, and occasionally other lymphopenias) and get OIs but do not have HIV.

 Nanette Benbow, M.A.S, (she/her) is a research assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; Director of the Third Coast Center for AIDS Research (TC-CFAR) End HIV Scientific Working Group; and member of the Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology. Her research interests include the use of epidemiologic and network modeling to improve HIV prevention and care continua; health equity for Latinos and sexual and gender minorities; and developing academic-public health partnerships in implementing evidence-based interventions that reduce HIV incidence in local settings. Before joining the Northwestern Faculty in 2016, Ms. Benbow was deputy commissioner of the STI/HIV Services Bureau of the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) where she oversaw the development and implementation of prevention and care interventions.

Dr. Garofalo’s primary clinical and research activities relate to the care of marginalized youth populations including HIV+ and LGBT young people. Research is largely HIV prevention in nature, mostly targeting either young men who have sex with men or transgender individuals. A new area of research and clinical interest involves working with young gender variant children and families.

Dr. Robert L. Murphy is the Director of the Center for Global Health at Northwestern University where he holds his primary academic appointment as the John P. Phair Professor of Medicine. He also holds an appointment as Professeur Associé de Recherche at the Pierre et Marie Curie Université-Paris in France. Dr. Murphy’s primary research and clinical interest is in viral infections. His research includes drug development of new antiretroviral drugs and vaccines for HIV and viral hepatitis and the scale-up of therapy for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. Murphy is Special Advisor to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program in Nigeria, sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health, where he has overseen the set up of 42 clinics that currently treat over 75,000 patients with HIV/AIDS. He also consults on NIH-supported antiretroviral education projects in Senegal and is Pricipal Investigator for Northwestern’s NIH/Fogarty International AIDS Training Grant based in Nigeria and Mali and the Northwestern Fogarty Frameworks grant. International activities and interests include assisting in the establishment of an AIDS Clinic in rural southern Kenya funded by the African Village Clinics Foundation of Chicago.

Dr. Murphy is the Principal Investigator for the National Institutes for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) at Northwestern. Within ACTG he has held numerous leadership positions including membership on the Scientific Agenda Steering Committee and Adult Executive Committee, the governing body of the group. He is a member of multiple medical societies and sits on the boards of several non-profit organizations including the Drucker Family Charitable Trust, the International AIDS Education Project, Objectif Recherche Vaccin SIDA and the Midwest AIDS Foundation, of which he is the founder.

Professor Murphy has been with Northwestern University since 1978. After receiving his AB from Boston University, he attended the Loyola Stritch School of Medicine and later completed his internship, residency, and fellowship in infectious diseases at the McGaw Medical Center, Northwestern University. Professor Murphy has remained with Northwestern, becoming professor of medicine in 1999. He presently holds the distinguished post of John P. Phair Professor of Medicine.

Seminar event co-sponsored with Baxalta

Warner C. Greene, MD, PhD

Director, Senior Investigator, and Nick and Sue Hellmann Distinguished Processor, Translational Medicine at Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology
Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and of Immunology, UCSF
Member, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
Fellow, American Academy for the Advancement of Science
Co-Director, UCSF-GIVI Center for AIDS Research
Councilor and President, Association of American Physicians.

Dr. Greene earned a bachelor’s degree at Stanford University and an MD/PhD at Washington University School of Medicine. He took his internship and residency training in Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard. After serving as a Senior Investigator at the National Cancer Institute and a Professor of Medicine and Howard Hughes Investigator at Duke University Medical Center, Dr. Greene accepted his current position as the Founding Director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology in 1991. The ongoing research in Dr. Greene’s laboratory focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying HIV pathogenesis, latency, and transmission. He is the author of more than 366 scientific papers and has been recognized as one of the 100 Most Cited Scientists in the world. In 2007, Dr. Greene expanded his work to include global health in sub-Saharan Africa in his service as president and executive chairman of the Accordia Global Health Foundation. Accordia established the Infectious Diseases Institute at Makerere University in Uganda, which has trained thousands of African health care workers, is caring for 30,000 HIV-infected patients, and has brought health care to nearly 500,000 people living in remote rural regions of Uganda. In 2016, Accordia merged with Africare

Seth C. Kalichman, PhD

Dr. Kalichman’s research focuses on health psychology, particularly psychological issues of chronic illness. He currently devotes all of his research time to behavioral and social aspects of AIDS. His research includes studies of theoretical predictors of HIV-AID risk behavior, interventions to prevent the spread of HIV, coping among people living with HIV-AIDS, and improving HIV-AIDS treatment adherence. His research is focused in the southern United States and South Africa. His work has been continuously and exclusively funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1992. He was previously on the faculties of Loyola University of Chicago, Georgia State University, and the Medical College of Wisconsin where he worked under the direction of Jeffrey A. Kelly to help establish the Center for AIDS Intervention Research (CAIR). He is currently the director of the Southeast HIV and AIDS Research and Evaluation (SHARE) Project, a research program within the AIDS Survival Project in Atlanta, Georgia. His research in South Africa is in collaboration with the Human Sciences Research Council. Professor Kalichman serves on NIH grant review panels, has over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, and has authored and edited five books in the area of HIV/AIDS prevention and care services, including Positive Prevention, recently published by Springer. He is also the current editor of the bimonthly journal AIDS and Behavior. Professor Kalichman was the recipient of the 1997 Early Career Award in Health Psychology from the American Psychological Association and the 2005 Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for Behavioral Medicine.

Thor Wagner, MD
Investigator, Center for Global Infectious Disease Research
Assistant professor, Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington

Dr. Wagner’s research is focused on pediatric HIV infection, which accounts for 15% of all HIV deaths. His primary interest is understanding chronic HIV infection during antiretroviral therapy. Specifically, why doesn’t antiretroviral therapy eradicate HIV infection? Is there ongoing viral replication? Is there proliferation of cells with viable proviral HIV? Can we identify the remaining infected cells? Is immune tolerance to HIV a barrier to curing HIV? Answers to these questions should help design new treatment strategies more likely to cure HIV.  Dr. Wagner’s other research interest is improving infectious disease diagnostics in low resource settings. Specifically, he is working to develop a point-of-care diagnostic test for infant HIV. Currently there is no simple test to diagnose infants with HIV, and 50% of HIV-infected children die before they can be diagnosed. To accomplish this hewe are utilizing state-of-the-art monoclonal antibody screening technology to optimize the sensitivity of immunoassays to detect HIV antigens.

Susan Zolla-Pazner, PhD

Dr. Susan Zolla-Pazner is a professor in the departments of Medicine and Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a guest investigator at the Rockefeller University. Her work has been pivotal in establishing the central role of antibodies in protection from HIV infection and thereby helping  to focus the efforts of the HIV vaccine field on humoral immunity as a preventive approach, leading the American  Association for the Advancement of Science to refer to her as an “antibody person.” Named one of “Six Prominent Women Scientists Making a Difference in the AIDS Fight” (IAVIReport), she has discussed her vaccine-development work on PBS’s “Charlie Rose” show.

Building on her decades of research into the antigenic and structural nature of the second and third variable region (V2 and V3) of the HIV envelope glycoprotein, gp120, Dr. Zolla-Pazner measured the levels of antibodies (Abs) specific for these regions in the vaccine and placebo recipients of the RV144 clinical vaccine trial in Thailand. These were 2 of more than 100 assays run by scientists around the globe to determine if there was an immune correlate of the reduced rate of HIV infection in the vaccine recipients. Independent statistical analyses of the data indicated that the only independent correlate of reduced infection was the level of V2 Abs in the sera of vaccine recipients. These results indicated that, as Dr. Zolla-Pazner had hypothesized more than 10 years before, Abs to variable regions of gp120 play a crucial role in protection from infection. In addition, Dr. Zolla-Pazner measure Ab levels to several additional sites on gp120 at various times after the end of the immunization protocol of the trial. She showed that Abs reached maximal levels 2 weeks after the last immunization and dropped to background levels 6 months later. These findings corresponded with data showing that maximum protection from infection occurred in the first 6 months after the immunization period, and that there would be little if any protection thereafter. Together, these results strongly suggested that antibodies were a key to protection from HIV infection, a highly controversial point until the findings of the Zolla-Pazner lab.

Dr. Zolla-Pazner and her colleagues have spent the last 10 years developing “designer vaccines,” i. e., V2- and V3-scaffold proteins that focus Ab production on these regions of gp120. Her studies in rabbits and nonhuman primates have demonstrated that  structure-based recombinant vaccines induce Abs that react with the envelopes of viruses from diverse HIV subgroups and have biologic activity, including neutralization and phagocytosis.

Sera L. Young, MA, PhD
Assistant Professor,  Department of Anthropology Northwestern University

The focus of Dr. Young’s work is on the reduction maternal and child undernutrition in low-resource settings, especially sub-Saharan Africa. Methodologically, she draws on her training in medical anthropology (MA, University of Amsterdam), international nutrition (PhD, Cornell) and HIV (Fellowship, University of California San Francisco) to take a biocultural approach to understanding how mothers in low-resource settings cope to preserve their health and that of their families.

Luc Anselin, PhD

Dr. Luc Anselin is the Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and the College at the University of Chicago, where he also directs the newly established Center for Spatial Data Science. He is also a Fellow of NORC and a member of the Committee on Geographical Studies. His research deals with the analysis of geospatial data and ranges from developing new methods for data exploration, visualization and modeling to implementing them in open source software, and applying in a range of empirical contexts. He is the developer of the widely used GeoDa software for spatial data analysis. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

David Ernesto Muñar
CEO, Howard Brown Health
Co-Chair, Third Coast CFAR Community Collaboration Board

Howard Brown Health is one of the largest providers of HIV care and prevention services in Chicago. Founded in 1976, HBH has expanded its programs and locations to serve over 19,000 clients in 2015. Since the 1980s, the health center’s staff and clients have worked closely with Third Coast CFAR institutions on a multitude of HIV research studies. David Ernesto Muñar, Howard Brown Health CEO,  and several of his colleagues will present the health center’s strategic vision, patient population, and services. The HBH leadership will also discuss ongoing research initiatives and opportunities for new collaborations.

HBH has been a leader in HIV and LGBTQ care for decades. Nearly 3,000 people with HIV receive primary care at HBH and over 1,300 HBH clients have initiated PrEP. The health center provides a full range of supportive services to people with HIV and those at high risk.

Nathan M. Sherer, PhD
Assistant Professor of Molecular Virology and Oncology
McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research
School of Medicine and Public Health
University of Wisconsin – Madison
The late stages of the retroviral life cycle involve a series of integrated post-transcriptional regulatory events mediated by interactions between key viral and cellular factors. These stages are initiated at nuclear export of unspliced and partially spliced viral mRNAs, including full-length genomic RNAs (gRNAs) that encode the Gag and Gag-Pol polyproteins that form the viral capsid. For HIV-1, gRNA nuclear export is regulated by the viral Rev protein that multimerizes on the Rev response element (RRE), a cis-acting structural RNA element found in intron-containing viral transcripts, and recruits the cellular chromosomal region maintenance 1 (CRM1) nuclear export receptor through its C-terminal leucine-rich nuclear export signal (NES). It is not fully understood why HIV-1 gRNAs (and some other retroviruses) use the CRM1 pathway, in contrast to other retroviruses such as Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (M-PMV) that lack Rev equivalents and utilize the conventional NXF1/NXT-regulated mRNA nuclear export machinery.
To study HIV-1 and other retroviruses, we have engineered a long-term (>24 h) multicolor, systems-based live cell imaging strategy for directly monitor several viral post-transcriptional regulatory stages (encompassing transcription, RNA nuclear export, translation, intracellular trafficking, and virus particle assembly) all in the context of single cells. I will discuss our recent progress, including the discovery that HIV-1 Rev-dependent RNA exhibits “burst-like” nuclear export kinetics, our finding that Mason-Pfizer monkey virus encodes a cis-acting RNA element that links its RNAs to microtubule motor complexes, and new evidence that many to most viral RNA elements program RNAs for distinct trafficking and translation behaviors. I will also summarize how we are applying our HIV imaging strategy to study the roles of host cellular factors that regulate HIV gene expression and virion production.

On Campus location ONLY.

For more information please contact Barbara Jaron,  b-jaron@northwestern.edu. 

Mojgan Naghavi, PhD
Associate Professor in Microbiology-Immunology

Dr. Naghavi’s research has had a long-term focus on host factors that regulate HIV-1 infection in a variety of cell types, including microglia and primary neurons. Early work discovered that the neuronal protein FEZ-1 regulates early HIV-1 infection. She has since gone on to show that FEZ1 acts as a microtubule (MT) motor adaptor protein that associates with HIV-1 capsids and regulates inward movement of viral particles to the nucleus. Dr. Naghavi have also uncovered fundamental aspects of how HIV-1 regulates MT behavior to facilitate infection and the host factors involved. This includes MT plus-end binding proteins and actin-MT cross-linkers involved in initiating virus transport. Moreover, She discovered that HIV-1 infection was regulated by PDZD8, a poorly understood protein whose biological function was unknown prior to her discovery of its role in regulating MT stability. Beyond HIV-1, Dr. Naghavi has also discovered how neurotropic viruses such as Herpes Simplex Virus type 1 (HSV-1) exploit MTs to facilitate their replication.

Deputy Director, Vaccine Research Center

Chief, Immunology Laboratory

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Marguerita Lightfoot, PhD 

Professor and Chief for the Division of Prevention Science, UCSF School of Medicine
Director, Center for Prevention Studies (CAPS)
Director, UCSF Prevention Research Center (PRC)

Marguerita Lightfoot, PhD has an established research career conducting community-involved research, receiving awards for my community partnership efforts. She has considerable experience designing and implementing preventive interventions and has developed culturally competent, efficacious HIV interventions for delinquent adolescents, runaway/homeless youth, youth living with HIV, and young MSM, including developing interventions for delivery via technology (e.g., computers, websites, mobile phone, video games). In particular, she developed an efficacious computer-based intervention to reduce the sexual risk behaviors of delinquent youth (published in the American Journal of Public Health), successfully adapted an intervention for youth living with HIV to youth in Uganda (published in Prevention Science), and developed a computer-based intervention implemented in medical settings to reduce the HIV transmission risk behavior of adults living with HIV (published in JAIDS). She is particularly interested in developing cost-effective interventions that are easily translatable with utility in community settings and utilizes new technologies to engage disenfranchised individuals in health promotion activities. She has also conducted psychotherapy with predominately African American and Latino adolescents, adults, and families infected and/or affected by HIV.

Aditya Khanna, PhD, MS
Staff Scientist and Director of Network Modeling
Chicago Center for HIV Elimination
University of Chicago

Dr. Khanna is a computational epidemiologist and statistician, and is interested in combining data and mathematical and statistical models to understand infectious disease dynamics and prevention mechanisms. He works on assessing the applicability of models and modeling frameworks, and the epidemiological, demographic and public health implications of such computational and modeling work. A focus of his work is to use computational and simulation modeling tools to inform policy decision-making for HIV prevention. Modeling of dynamic empirical networks is a recurring theme in his research, both to generate sexual networks through which pathogens transmit, and the flow of information through social networks, which impact human behaviors. The feedbacks between micro-level agent-behaviors and macro-level community structure are of particular interest in this work. His prior work has involved network modeling of HIV transmission dynamics in several populations: circular migrants, pregnant women, serodiscordant couples in various regions of Africa, and men who have sex with men (MSM) in the United States. Dr. Khanna’s current work at the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination is focused on various NIH-funded modeling and data analytic projects to reduce HIV incidence in vulnerable populations.

Seminar livestream https://bluejeans.com/274088775/browser

Downloading free BlueJeans app is recommended

Associate Director for Therapeutics, US Military HIV Research Program

Dr. Ananworanich oversees adult HIV therapeutic trials as part of the NIH-funded MHRP Clinical Trials Unit under the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. While she joined MHRP in 2014, Dr. Ananworanich and MHRP researchers have collaborated since 2005 as part of the joint HIV research effort between MHRP and the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Center called SEARCH.

Dr. Ananworanich possesses a wealth of expertise in developing protocols and managing adult and pediatric HIV clinical trials. Over the past decade she has led more than 80 studies including the Staccato treatment interruption study that led to a seminal paper in the Lancet and the NIAID-funded study, PREDICT, on when to start antiretroviral therapy in children. She has more than 200 publications and is currently the principal investigator on the MHRP/NIAID-funded acute HIV infection study, RV254. 

A noted leader in the field of pediatric HIV and HIV research, Dr. Ananworanich serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Virus Eradication. In addition to membership on the steering committee of the Pediatric European Network for Treatment of AIDS and the steering Committee of the IAS Towards an HIV Cure Initiative, Dr. Ananworanich is a member of the ACTG and the IMPAACT HIV Cure committees and co-chairs the acute HIV infection working group of the ACTG and the clinical research working group of the Forum Cure Project. 

Seminar livestream https://bluejeans.com/274088775/browser

Director, Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Professor, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Barouch studies the immunology and virology of HIV-1 infection and develops novel vaccine strategies.  His laboratory has explored a series of novel vaccine technologies, including adjuvanted DNA vaccines, poxvirus vectors, and alternative serotype adenovirus vectors in both preclinical and clinical studies.  In particular, he has advanced a series of novel adenovirus vector-based HIV-1 vaccine candidates from concept and design to preclinical testing to phase 1 clinical trials that are currently underway in both the U.S. and sub-Saharan Africa.

Brandon Hill, PhD

Executive Director

Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry and Innovation in Sexual Health(Ci3)

The University of Chicago

Gregory Phillips II, PhD

Research Assistant Professor

Medical Social Sciences

Northwestern University

Off-site options for attending:

-University of Chicago will broadcast the workshop via videolink at Wyler Pavillion, Room L-038, 5837 S. Maryland Ave at the UChicago Medical Center

-Attend via BlueJeans webconferencing: https://bluejeans.com/485237428/

-Attend via Phone: +1.408.740.7256 or +1.888.240.2560 (US Toll Free) | Meeting ID: 485237428

Katerina Christopoulos, MD

Associate Professor, UCSF School of Medicine

Barry L. MacLean Professor of Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise

University of Chicago

Dr. Hubbell’s research focuses on the development of molecular and materials engineering approaches in immunotherapy. He also researches vaccination in infectious disease and cancer and on an antigen-specific tolerance induction to protein drugs, allergens and autoimmune antigens.

Brian Mustanski, Ph.D., is Tenured Associate Professor of Medical Social Sciences, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Psychology at Northwestern University; Director of the IMPACT LGBT Health and Development Program; and Co-Director of the Third Coast Center for AIDS Research.  A central focus of his research is on the relationships between mental, behavioral, and physical health, particularly as they relate to HIV/AIDS in vulnerable populations. He received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Indiana University, where he trained extensively at the Kinsey Institute. Dr. Mustanski has been a Principal Investigator for federal (NIH, CDC, NSF) and foundation research and training awards totaling over $24 million in funding. The majority of his research focuses on the health and development of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth and the application of new media and technology to sexual health promotion and HIV prevention. He has received a number of award for his work in this area, included being named a William T Grant Scholar, the 2011 recipient of the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution to LGBT Psychology from the American Psychological Association Division 44, and the Award for Excellence and Innovation in Sexuality Education from the World Association for Sexual Health. – See more at: http://www.impactprogram.org/about-impact/dr-mustanski-director/#sthash.MXxPfRSw.dpuf

“NU Viral Hepatitis Registry: Impact of Direct-Acting Antiviral Therapy on HCV Outcomes in HIV-HCV Co-infected Persons”
Valentina Stosor, MD

Dr. Stosor is an Associate Professor in Infectious Disease and Organ Transplantation. She is engaged in the clinical care of immunocompromised patients, including organ and stem cell transplant recipients and those with HIV/HCV co-infection. Her clinical research interests include: 1. HIV and organ transplantation, 2. HIV and HCV co-infection, 3. infectious diseases outcomes after organ transplantation, and 4. infectious diseases outcomes in mechanical circulatory support recipients.

“How Can We Involve Parents in HIV Research among Adolescent Men Who Have Sex with Men?”
Michael E. Newcomb, PhD
Dr. Newcomb is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences and a core faculty member of the IMPACT LGBT Health and Development Program. He received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and completed his pre-doctoral internship in clinical psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Newcomb’s research focuses on health disparities in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth and adults, and he focuses on sexual risk behavior and HIV/AIDS, alcohol and substance use, and mental health problems. He also has interests in psychosocial resiliency factors that buffer against negative health outcomes in LGBT individuals. Dr. Newcomb is Principal Investigator of a research grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to examine the conditions under which prospective observational risk behavior surveys become self-monitoring interventions for binge-drinking and drug-using young men who have sex with men (YMSM). He is also the dual Principal Investigator (with Dr. Brian Mustanski) of a research contract with the Chicago Department of Public Health to conduct CDC’s National HIV Behavioral Surveillance-YMSM Supplement (NHBS-Y) with YMSM ages 13-17. Dr. Newcomb collaborates on a variety of other research projects funded by NIH and other foundations as a research scientist in the IMPACT Program. Dr. Newcomb’s clinical interests focus on treatment of depression and anxiety in the context of chronic medical illness using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and he has received training in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). Dr. Newcomb is interested in pursuing clinical intervention development as it relates to LGBT health.

AIDSVu is a free, interactive online mapping site that allows users to view the HIV epidemic at the national, state, and local levels by transmission category, age, race, and sex.

Please join us for lunch as Patrick Sullivan,
Principal Scientist at AIDSVu, leads a demonstration and discussion about mapping the HIV epidemic in the United States followed by a Q&A about how you can put AIDSVu to use in your work and research.

Click here to RSVP.

Dr. Sullivan has 17 years of experience in HIV epidemiology, prevention, and behavioral surveillance in the United States and in international settings. He worked in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 12 years, including service as a Branch Chief and Acting Deputy Division Director in the Division of HIV AIDS Prevention. He also has experience in design and oversight of biomedical prevention trials, having served as the Associate Director of Scientific Support for the NIH-funded HIV Vaccine Trials Network, where he was responsible for overseeing the development of HIV vaccine trial sites in developing countries, including African countries.

He is currently the PI of NIH-supported research grants to explain black/white disparities in HIV among MSM, to develop improved methods for online HIV prevention studies, and to pilot a couples-focused HIV prevention intervention for MSM. He also serves as Co-Director of the Emory CFAR’s Prevention Sciences Core.