Speakers

He is temporary Assistant Professor at the University of Torino (Department of Medical Sciences, Infectious Diseases). Infectious Diseases Specialist (University of Torino, Italy); Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand). He is member of the Panel of the Italian Guidelines on the Use of Antiretrovirals and Management of patients living with HIV.

He has experience as a Clinicians in Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine (Sudan, Thailand, Burundi); several phase II, III and IV studies in antiretroviral treatment trials.

His main field of interest is the clinical pharmacology and pharmacogenetics of anti-infective agents (antiretroviral, antibiotic, antifungals) and the central nervous system complication of HIV-infection.

She is currently working as senior physician at the Department of Infectious Diseases and responsible of the Neurovirology Research Unit at the Research Division of Immunology, Transplantation and Infectious Diseases of San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy, and as contract Professor of Infectious Diseases at San Raffaele University.

Her research group is mainly involved in studies on HIV Infection of the Central Nervous System, Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy and other HIV-associated CNS complications.

She is a panel member of the Italian HIV Treatment Guidelines, of the EACS Co-morbidities and of the Opportunistic Infections Guidelines, and of the NIH/CDC/IDSA Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Opportunistic Infections.in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents.

Ben Collins, co-director of ReShape, has been a community organiser, networker, and convener for over 50 years. His key area of interest is movement building to prevent and respond to interconnected social and health issues, including social and structural inequity, HIV and related conditions, race, gender, stigma and discrimination, trauma, neurodivergence, and substance use.

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.

Antoine Douaihy, MD, is a Professor of Psychiatry & Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Senior Academic Director of Addiction Medicine Services of Western Psychiatric Hospital, Director of Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), Co-Director of Tobacco Treatment Service of UPMC, and Vice Chair, City of Pittsburgh, HIV Commission.
Dr. Douaihy has focused his career on patient care, education, training, advocacy, and research in the field of addiction, psychology of behavior change, motivational interviewing, and HIV. He has a well-established record in conducting multisite clinical trials. In recognition for his dedication to education, He has been the recipient of multiple teaching awards including the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award and the Donald Fraley Award for Medical Student Mentoring, recognizing him for the qualities of a masterful clinician, academician, educator, mentor, contributor to the medical school community and the community at large. His publications include research papers, clinical writings, patients and family educational materials, and academic books about substance use disorders, HIV, and motivational interviewing.

Scott Letendre, M.D., is Professor of Medicine in Residence in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine and, following his residency in internal medicine at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, he completed fellowships in Infectious Disease Medicine at Duke University and in Neurologic HIV Research at UCSD. At UCSD, Dr. Letendre performs translational, patient-oriented research of the central nervous system complications of chronic infections, including HIV, HCV, and CMV. As part of a multidisciplinary research team, he conducts treatment trials of neurocognitively impaired individuals and analyzes their response to therapy as well as studies of the pharmacokinetics of antiretrovirals, the effect of comorbidities, and biomarker correlates of disease. Dr. Letendre is also an investigator in the UCSD unit of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group.

He participates in several international research projects, including projects based in China, India, Zambia, and Romania. Dr

Dr Catia Marzolini obtained a degree in Pharmacy followed by a PhD in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the pharmacogenetics of drug transporters within the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA. She obtained subsequently the “venia docenti” from the University of Basel.

Catia Marzolini is currently working as a senior research scientist in the Division of Infectious Diseases & Hospital Epidemiology at the University Hospital of Basel. Her research focuses on pharmacological and genetic determinants of antiretroviral drug response and toxicity. Catia Marzolini has become an expert in the field of HIV drug-drug interactions. She is a member of the Liverpool HIV drug-drug interactions website and is notably in charge of predicting drug-drug interactions. Catia Marzolini has also joined the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) guidelines committee panel for the pharmacological aspects of HIV therapy.

Jose A. Muñoz-Moreno is a clinician and researcher at the Lluita contra les Infeccions Foundation, located in the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital, in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain). He earned the Ph.D. degree in Neurosciences in 2012 (Cum Laude), and currently he is also a collaborating professor with the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).

Muñoz-Moreno is involved in projects that address psychology and the human behaviour associated with HIV infection. In terms of study, he mostly investigates the neurocognitive features of HIV infection, the impact of HIV and antiretroviral treatments on quality of life and emotional status, and adherence to antiretroviral therapy.

Muñoz-Moreno’s recent work particularly focuses on assessment methods to detect HIV-related neurocognitive changes and the current profile of neurocognitive impairment in people living with HIV infection.

Dr. Sylvie Naar is a Distinguished Endowed Professor at the Florida State University College of Medicine’s Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine. Dr. Naar is the Director of the Center for Translational Behavioral Science and Director of the FSU Clinical and Translational Science Award. She is a clinical researcher with studies across the spectrum of intervention research from early trials translating basic behavioral science into new interventions, to randomized clinical trials, to comparative effectiveness, to implementation.

She has several decades of clinical and research experience in prevention and treatment of HIV in adolescents and emerging adults in the United States, Thailand, and Zambia. Dr. Naar is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of trainers and authored two books in the Guildford Press Series, Motivational Interviewing with Adolescents and Young Adults and Motivational Interviewing and CBT.

I am the Consultant Neuropsychiatrist for CASCAID, an NHS Mental Heath Service for people living with HIV in South-East London, based at the Maudsley Hospital. We support people living with HIV who experience feelings of shame, stigma, or discrimination relating to their HIV diagnosis, affecting their physical and mental health. We also provide expert assessment, liaison and support to people living with HIV-related acquired brain injury resulting in neuropsychiatric illness

Dr. Robert Paul obtained his Ph.D. in Biological Psychology from the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center. He concurrently completed a re-specialization program in Clinical Psychology at Oklahoma State University and subsequently completed a clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship in Neuropsychology at Brown Medical School.

Dr. Paul’s research program is largely focused on understanding the contribution of subcortical brain systems to cognitive and affective behavior. Recently his work has focused on two conditions that provide opportunities to study subcortical brain systems, including subcortical ischemic vascular disease (SIVD) associated with advanced age, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The neuropathology of SIVD and HIV predominately involves both white matter and subcortical gray matter structures. His research studies typically incorporate neuropsychological tests to examine behavioral indices of brain function. These tests are weighted towards domains of function subserved by subcortical brain systems (e.g., information processing speed). Dr. Paul’s research program has also increasingly incorporated structural neuroimaging to explore the neuronal integrity of brain systems. The neuroimaging aspects of his research program are conducted in collaboration with co-investigators based at Washington University School of Medicine.

Ignacio Pérez-Valero MD PhD is a 43 years-old Consultant Physician of Internal Medicine at the Reina Sofía University Hospital. Córdoba, Spain.

I am a specialist pharmacist in Hospital Pharmacy and hold a PhD from the Complutense University of Madrid. Currently, I work in the outpatient Pharmacy Department at Hospital Ramón y Cajal, where we provide care for more than 3,000 people living with HIV. This hospital has a long-standing history of excellence in patient care and is a pioneer in HIV research.

During my training, I had the opportunity to work for several years in the hospital’s Geriatrics Department, where I contributed to the development of consensus documents on inappropriate prescribing in older adults, collaborated on multiple systematic reviews, and deepened my expertise in the healthcare management of this population.

Currently, much of my research focuses on the use of medications in older adults and people living with HIV, aiming to optimize treatment and improve their quality of life.

Alan Winston is a Professor of HIV and Genitourinary Medicine at Imperial College and Consultant Physician at St. Mary’s Hospital, London. He has an M.D. in antiretroviral clinical pharmacology and his research focuses on non-infectious co-morbidities associated with HIV-disease in the modern antiretroviral era, with a strong focus on central nervous system complications.

Dr. Alan Winston qualified from Glasgow University and undertook training in general medicine and HIV medicine in the UK and Australia. He leads the HIV and GU clinical trials unit at St. Mary’s hospital which runs over 20 studies at one time.

He is the principal clinical investigator on the POPPY study, a cohort study describing the incidence and nature of co-morbidities in HIV.