Barreiro-Montijo Hospital Center. Portugal
Guida da Ponte, M.D., Ph.D., psychiatrist, Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health – Centro Hospitalar Barreiro-Montijo, Portugal. One of the major fields of practice is with HIV patients with a psychiatric outpatient clinic dedicated to this condition. Author of scientific publications, mainly in the areas of neurocognitive disorders, depression, anxiety and psychopharmacology and antiretroviral interactions.
Department of Mental Health. Modena, Italy
Maria Ferrara M.D. graduated in 2007 at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She completed her residency in adult Psychiatry at the same University in 2012 and she has been working as full time psychiatrist in a community mental health center in Modena, Italy since then. She also obtained a Master Degree in Neuropharmacology in 2012. She is Vice President of HIV/AIDS Psychiatry Section for World Psychiatry Association and member of Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine Special Interest Group of HIV/AIDS.
As part of her education as resident in psychiatry, she attended the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program (San Diego, California) as visiting scholar conducting a research about metabolic side effects of the combined use of antipsychotics and antiretrovirals. In 2012 she was granted for a research project on the correlation between neurocognitive skills and CNS penetration of antiretroviral therapy at the HIV metabolic Clinic in Modena.
She was selected and scholarship awarded to attend the first European psychiatric Association Summer School in “Comorbidity between mental & Physical Disorders” in 2012 and the European College of NeuroPsychopharmacology (ENCP) School of Neuropsychopharmacology, Oxford (UK) in 2013. She is now Post-Doc Associate at Yale University, conducting research within the STEP Project on First Episode Psychosis
Psychiatry Unit. Hospital U. Clínic. Barcelona, Spain.
Jordi Blanch is Psychiatrist. He is currently Director of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Hospital Universitari de Santa Maria de Lleida. Since 2009 he is the chief of the Outpatient Clinic of the Psychiatry and Psychology Department of Hospital Clínic of Barcelona. Chair for Educational Affairs of the Clinical Institute of Neurosciences in Hospital Clínic of Barcelona.
He also is Associate Professor, University of Barcelona. Dr. Blanch is member of the Organization of AIDS Psychiatrists and member of the HIV/AIDS Psychiatry Section of the World Psychiatry Association. He is a founding member and Coordinator of the International Symposium on Psychiatry and HIV since 2008.