Speakers

Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynecology

Senior lecturer and researcher at the Department of Infectious Diseases. University Hospital Bern, Switzerland

Specialist in Internal Medicine and international traveler care. Jiménez Díaz Foundation University Hospital. Madrid, Spain

Specialist in Infectious Diseases (University of Turin, 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.

Joaquim Fernández-Solà, M.D; Ph.D 68 year-old. Chairman in Internal Medicine, University of Barcelona, Senior Consultant in Internal Medicine at Hospital Clinic, Barcelona (Spain). Chief of the Central Sensitivity Unit, CATSALUT, Generalitat de Catalunya. Senior Research in Neurosciences at IDIBAPS. Member of the Academia de Ciències Mèdiques de Catalunya i Balears. Master in Health and Social Services. 176 scientific publications.H-index > 46. Citation Index > 7,000.

Dr. Sarah Joseph is a virologist and evolutionary biologist with extensive experience examining the evolution of HIV-1 in the CNS and its effects on neurocognition. Dr. Joseph received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and was a postdoc at the University of North Carolina where she is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology. Dr. Joseph utilizes both traditional and next generation sequencing techniques to characterize HIV-1 populations in patient samples and to infer information about the evolutionary pressures shaping HIV-1 populations in different compartments of the body. This approach has revealed important information about the nature of HIV-1 transmission, viral colonization of the CNS and the establishment of viral reservoirs.

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

Santiago Madero is a Psychiatrist and Researcher at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. During the last years he has led the development of a new research unit at Hospital Clínic focused on the study and implementation of treatments with psychedelic substances in treatment-resistant depression and other mental disorders. He has taken part as a researcher and therapist in two clinical trials with 5-MeO-DMT for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression. He is currently the Principal Investigator for a study evaluating the use of psylocibin for treatment-resistant depression. He is coordinator of the working group on psychedelics of the Catalan Society of Psychiatry and Mental Health. He is co-founder andn has been vice-president of the Spanish Society of Psychedelic Medicine.

Catia Marzolini is a pharmacist by training and is an Associate Professor in the Service of Clinical Pharmacology at the University Hospital in Lausanne. Catia Marzolini is also affiliated to the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University Hospital of Basel and to the Department of Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool. She built her research career in the field of HIV pharmacology with a particular interest for the simulation of antiretroviral drug pharmacokinetics and drug-drug interactions in special populations using modelling. She is leading the therapeutic drug monitoring facility at CHUV which provides the measurement and the clinical interpretation for close to 100 medications. One of her current research interests aims at combining real-life therapeutic drug monitoring data with modelling to support prescribing for unstudied clinical scenarios encountered in clinical practice. Lastly, Catia Marzolini is the scientific lead of the Liverpool HIV and COVID drug-drug interactions website which are largely used around the world to screen for drug-drug interactions. She serves notably on the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) guidelines committee where she co-chairs the drug-drug interaction section.

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.

Eduard Parellada is Director of the Barcelona Clínic Schizophrenia Unit (BCSU) at the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona and Head of the Schizophrenia Research Group at IDIBAPS. Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Barcelona (UB) and accredited as a Full Professor by AQU Catalonia. From his position he has led the current creation of the Basic and Translational Research Laboratory in Schizophrenia.

Félix Pérez-Tejera is a Doctor in Social Psychology and an HIV activist based in Barcelona. He has worked for over 15 years at BCN Checkpoint, a leading community-based centre for HIV prevention, testing, and PrEP for men who have sex with men and transgender people. His work focuses on the development and coordination of research projects aimed at improving access to sexual health services and HIV prevention, while addressing HIV-related stigma. He is also an associate lecturer at the University of Barcelona and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, where he teaches about psychosocial risks affecting LGTBI communities and the design of effective psychosocial interventions.

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

Judith Usall i Rodié is a Senior Psychiatrist and research coordinator of the “Ethiopathogenesis and Treatment of Severe Mental Disorders (MERITT)” at the Research and Development Unit at Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu (Barcelona). She coordinates the Working Group on Women and Mental Health (GTRDSM) of the Catalan Society of Psychiatry and Mental Health (SCPSM) and the Group of Women and Mental Health of the Advisory Council for Mental Health and Addictions of the Department of Health of the Generalitat de Catalunya. She is also a member of the Department of Health’s Gender Policy Advisory Board.

He has published more than 150 scientific articles in international journals. She has participated in the organization of catalan and international congresses. Her main topics of interest are the mental health of women and especially severe mental disorders.

She is president of the International Association for Women’s Mental Health (IAWMH)

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.