In case you missed it: World AIDS Day recap

On December 6, 2024, the Duke Collaborative Community Council (D3C) hosted a heartfelt evening of reflection, connection, and advocacy in honor of World AIDS Day. Held in downtown Durham, the event brought together community members, CFAR researchers, and advocates to share stories, art, and insights that amplify the lived experiences of those affected by HIV. Read our recap of the evening.



News from the CFAR

Finding Hope at Home: SOM article highlights CFAR investigators working in global mental health

A SoM Magnify article by Lindsay Key highlights global mental health research at Duke, including projects to support people living with HIV:

Dorothy Dow, PhD, pictured in Tanzania, found that peer counseling for adolescents with HIV improved their mental health and enhanced medication adherence and virological suppression. (Photo by Susan Gallagher)

The state of global mental health -- where the needs for care far exceed the available resources -- could be compared to the Biblical story of feeding 5,000 hungry people with only five loaves of bread and two fish. But mental health providers can’t perform miracles, so instead they’re getting creative.  

As Duke University School of Medicine global health researchers expand support for mental health, they are increasingly working with non-specialists including community health workers, youth leaders, religious leaders, and primary care physicians.

While many countries are trying to ramp up training of mental health specialists, the gaps are so huge that they will take decades to close. In the meantime, researchers and clinicians at the Duke Center for Global Mental Health, directed by Eve Puffer, PhD, and its administrative home, the Duke Global Health Institute, are piloting new approaches such as “task sharing.” In this model, non-specialists already acquainted with patients are trained to provide services such as screenings, referrals, or even peer and group counseling.  

“It's really important with the task sharing models to figure out who is best placed to be the non-specialist provider and to align what they want and need to do in their current positions with what the goals of the intervention are,” said Puffer.  



Puffer incorporates task sharing in her own research in Kenya, where more than 20 percent of adolescents have depression symptoms and there are just 67 psychiatrists for 35 million people. She and her team developed a church-based intervention for families in rural areas to improve family interactions, promote mental health and prevent HIV among adolescents. 

Dorothy Dow, M.D., an infectious diseases doctor, has incorporated task-sharing for the past decade as part of a unique program to keep adolescents on track with HIV care. When the Duke associate professor of pediatrics and global health went to Moshi, Tanzania in 2011 as a student in the Master of Science in Global Health program at the Duke Global Health Institute, she was there to study and prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. But while there she noticed a startling trend in the clinic: the kids were not taking their medicine.  

These days, thanks to great strides in health care, a person with HIV who is taking their medication is expected to live as long as anyone else, according to Dow. What’s more, thanks to aid under the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), anti-retroviral therapy in the Tanzanian region where she works is free. Yet, sadly, patients in the 10- to 25-year-old range were dying from HIV at a disproportionate rate.

“They knew what was wrong, they had the medicine right there, and it was free, but they just weren’t taking it,” said Dow. “I really had to stand back and say, well, why are they not taking their medicine?”

The reason, Dow soon learned, had to do with the stigma surrounding HIV. Many of the youth were born infected and had seen one or both parents die from the disease. They worried about their futures with the virus, and how they would tell sexual partners. Even though medicine offered reasons to be optimistic, Dow knew her young patients weren’t feeling that hope for their lives. 



Dow was convinced that an intervention was needed, but she wasn’t trained in mental health, and there was only one psychiatrist in Mwanza. She applied for and received an NIH research career development award to build a program called Sauti ya Vijana (the Voice of Youth), in which youth are trained to serve as paid peer mentors. Read more.

Read the full story.

Duke Team Identifies a Strategy to Guide the Immune System to Respond to HIV

A Duke News & Media release highlights new findings that could be instrumental for HIV vaccine development:

Highly specific HIV antibodies could be induced by vaccination using a new strategy developed by researchers at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. Vaccination using this strategy may be able to counter the virus’s ability to outpace the immune system.

Publishing in Nature Communications, the researchers describe a strategy for engineering pieces of the HIV envelope that stimulate the immune system toward making protective antibodies.

“To achieve this, we have to find the right antibody and then guide it along the way toward key mutations that are really rare,” said senior author, Barton Haynes, M.D., director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. “What we have found is that the immune system does not want to make protective anti-HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies unless it receives some help. This study demonstrates that, with the help of computer simulations, we were able to find the right HIV envelope immunogens to guide the immune system to make the desired antibody types.”

Lead author Rory Henderson, Ph.D., used a computational technique called molecular dynamics simulation to identify how key antibody mutations prevent the virus from escaping neutralization. Their strategy was based on genes for antibodies with known potential for broad HIV-1 neutralization. By monitoring how these antibodies recognize the virus at the atomic scale and with a time resolution of nanoseconds, they identified changes to features on the envelope that favored those key antibody mutations.

“A lot of work has been done with what we call priming -- getting that gene to start to express and start seeing the antigen,” Henderson said. “What we've never been able to do is coax it toward a specific mutation, which is what we would need for a vaccine. Our study showed how we can do that.” Read more.

Read the full release.

Updates & Congratulations

• ⁠Philippe Rascle, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Reeves lab, gave a presentation in November at the Annual Joint Meeting of the NIH Martin Delaney Collaboratories for HIV Cure, hosted by The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: “SIV-derived peptides induce rhesus macaque antigen-specific NK cell responses in SIV infection.”

• Keith Reeves was recently named Visiting Professor at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and gave presentations to students and faculty in December. Dr. Reeves also recently gave the Keynote Lecture at the DHVI Training and Mentoring Retreat entitled "Defying Gravity on the Yellow Brick Road to Academic Success: Potholes, Side-quests, and Oracles"

Do you have news to share? We welcome any updates for us to share with the Duke CFAR community through our website and newsletter, including but not limited to: conference participation, awards, grant updates, reposts of articles/writeups about CFAR investigators and projects, photos of activities, and collaborations.

Tell us your news.

Coalition to End the HIV Epidemic in Durham event: Housing is a Civil Right

Monday, January 20, 2025 | 1:30pm ET |305 E. Main St, Durham

Join a grassroots movement, the Coalition to End the HIV Epidemic in Durham, for an event on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day following a 12pm service at First Presbyterian Church.

The EHE Coalition will present on the state of housing services for those living with HIV, the Coalition's mission, and their proposed path forward. Their meeting will take place in First Presbyterian's Fellowship Hall, and pizza will be served. 

CFAR-wide Webinar: A New Era of HOPE: Expansion of HIV to HIV Transplantation

Monday, January 27, 2025 | 3:30 - 4:30pm ET |Zoom

Please join us for the first CFAR-wide webinar of 2025, A New Era of HOPE: Expansion of HIV to HIV Transplantation.

Dr. Christine Durand is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Oncology at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Her clinical and research expertise include HIV and hepatitis in individuals who require transplant or cancer therapies. She led the first clinical trials of transplantation from donors with HIV to recipients with HIV under the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act in the United States. She also directs the JHU Transplant Research Center (TRC), a multidisciplinary research group that aims to mitigate organ shortage, improve outcomes after transplantation, and train leaders in the field.

Registration is required.

Register for the webinar.

Sustaining Community Engagement Learning Series

Tuesday, January 28, 2025 (+ Feb 25 & March 25) | 3pm ET |Zoom

The HRSA HAB-funded Integrated HIV/AIDS Planning Technical Assistance Center (IHAP TAC) is reconvening its peer learning series, Sustaining Community Engagement, in 2025. This three-part series encourages peer-to-peer sharing on recruitment, retention, and sustained community engagement in jurisdictional HIV prevention and care planning bodies. Each session will have a short presentation and then breakout groups for sharing challenges with recruitment and retention and solutions to address.

• Part One: Successful Strategies to Recruit Planning Body Members: January 28, 3:00 pm ET
• Part Two: Successful Strategies to Retain Planning Body Members: February 25, 3:00 pm ET
• Part Three: Successful Strategies for Promotion: March 25, 3:00 pm ET

In the first session, participants will learn about collaborative integrated prevention and care planning activities, understand the importance of recruitment, learn the components of a recruitment strategy, and describe the benefits, barriers, and competition for the recruitment audience.

Register for the Part One Zoom session.

Inter-CFAR Health Equity Working Group Meeting

Wednesday, February 12, 2025 | 12 - 1pm ET | Zoom

Topic: Community-Engaged Research—Models and Practice

Event Details:

📅 Date: February 12, 2025

🕚 Time: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ET 

📍 Location: Virtual Meeting

What to Expect—

• Purpose: Discover the spectrum of community-engaged research (see The Community-Engaged Research Framework)
• Expert Insights: Hear 10-minute presentations on community-engaged HIV research:
• Dr. Amy Corneli will share examples of community-informed and community-involved research
• Dr. Sarah Wilson will share examples of shared leadership and community-led research
• Interactive Breakout Sessions: Engage in a guided discussion with the speakers about how community-engaged research can enhance your research program. 

No RSVP required.

Join the call.

Apply by January 31st for Global Infectious Diseases across a Woman’s Lifespan Course + Women's Infectious Diseases Global Scholars (WINGS) Program

May 19 - 22, 2025 | Weil Cornell, New York, NY

Through an NIAID R25 Training Grant (R25AI183323), we are launching a didactic 4-day course which focuses on global infectious diseases (e.g. HIV, TB, malaria) in women. Lectures include topics such as: 

• Immune changes in women across the lifespan
• Clinical drug trials in pregnancy
• Racial disparities in women's infectious diseases
• Infectious diseases in adolescent girls

...and features many of our esteemed colleagues from the IMPAACT and ACTG networks!

To complement the didactic lectures, there will also be Methodology Workshops focused on study methods and measures specific to women's health, as well as best practices for informed consent and other ethical issues specific to women across the lifespan. The course will culminate in a half-day Scientific Symposium focused on emerging issues in women's health, such as the impacts of climate change and politics on women's health as well as providing care for transgender women. 

The deadline to apply is January 31, 2025. Early applicants will be able to take advantage of a limited number of travel/lodging stipends!

Learn more and apply for the course.

In addition to the course, trainees can also apply for a two-year Women's Infectious Disease Global Scholars (WINGS) mentorship program. The WINGS cohort will participate in a complementary hybrid in-person/online curriculum focused on leadership and professional skills development. They will develop peer mentorship cohorts as well as receive mentorship from Research Advisory teams comprised of senior researchers that have expertise in the scholar's research topic and/or study population. The program kicks off at the Global Infectious Diseases across a Woman’s Lifespan Course at Weill Cornell in May 2025.

We are looking for postdoctoral candidates (MD or PhD) who are just beginning their research career in global infectious diseases research OR are more established researchers who are looking to expand into women's health.

The deadline to apply is January 31, 2025.

Learn more about the WINGS program.

Recently Published

Congratulations to Chris Beyrer, Priyamvada Acharya, and Bart Haynes, who were on Web of Science's list of 2024's most highly-cited scientists!

Prevalence of and Risk Factors for Liver Enzyme Elevation After Hepatitis C Virologic Cure.

Zhang HL, Nemeth H, Woodhouse EW, Davenport CA, Chan C, Okeke NL, Naggie S.

J Viral Hepat. 2024 Dec;31(12):866-872. doi: 10.1111/jvh.14009.

Neonatal immunity associated with heterologous HIV-1 neutralizing antibody induction in SHIV-infected Rhesus Macaques.

Holmes S, Li H, Shen X, Martin M, Tuck R, Chen Y, Giorgi EE, Kirshner HF, Berry M, Van Italie E, Venkatayogi S, Martin Beem JS, Edwards RJ, Mansouri K, Singh A, Kuykendall C, Gurley T, Anthony Moody M, DeNayer N, Demarco T, Denny TN, Wang Y, Evangelous TD, Clinton JT, Hora B, Wagh K, Seaman MS, Saunders KO, Solomotis N, Misamore J, Lewis MG, Wiehe K, Montefiori DC, Shaw GM, Williams WB.

Nat Commun. 2024 Nov 27;15(1):10302. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54753-6.

GeM-LR: Discovering predictive biomarkers for small datasets in vaccine studies.

Lin L, Spreng RL, Seaton KE, Dennison SM, Dahora LC, Schuster DJ, Sawant S, Gilbert PB, Fong Y, Kisalu N, Pollard AJ, Tomaras GD, Li J.

PLoS Comput Biol. 2024 Nov 14;20(11):e1012581. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012581.

Decreased variability in the site-specific results during participation in the External Quality Assurance Program Oversight Laboratory (EQAPOL) proficiency program for IFN-gamma enzyme-linked immunospot (IFN-γ ELISpot) assay.

Hargarten PM, Porth CG, Berrong M, Weed D, Carper M, Denny TN, Ferrari G, Rountree W.

J Immunol Methods. 2024 Nov;534:113770. doi: 10.1016/j.jim.2024.113770.

Perceived versus actual HIV risk among PrEP indicated persons with criminal legal involvement.

Krajewski T, LeMasters KH, Oser CB, Brinkley-Rubinstein L.

AIDS Care. 2024 Nov;36(11):1647-1656. doi: 10.1080/09540121.2024.2383873.

Loss of HIV candidate vaccine efficacy in male macaques by mucosal nanoparticle immunization rescued by V2-specific response.

Rahman MA, Bissa M, Scinto H, Howe SE, Sarkis S, Ma ZM, Gutowska A, Jiang X, Luo CC, Schifanella L, Moles R, Silva de Castro I, Basu S, N'guessan KF, Williams LD, Becerra-Flores M, Doster MN, Hoang T, Choo-Wosoba H, Woode E, Sui Y, Tomaras GD, Paquin-Proulx D, Rao M, Talton JD, Kong XP, Zolla-Pazner S, Cardozo T, Franchini G, Berzofsky JA.

Nat Commun. 2024 Oct 22;15(1):9102. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-53359-2.

Engagement in Care, Awareness, and Interest in Long-Acting Injectable Anti-Retroviral Therapy.

Stout JA, Allamong M, Hung F, Link K, Chan C, Muiruri C, Sauceda J, McKellar MS.

AIDS Behav. 2024 Oct;28(10):3315-3325. doi: 10.1007/s10461-024-04423-x.

The Climate Change Burden on Immune Health: Are Persons Living with HIV More at Risk?

Woolley G, Kroll K, Hoffman K, Ward A, Corneli A, Mudrak SV, Qureshi MU, Okeke NL, Chan C, Jones AD, Tomaras GD, Reeves RK.

AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses. 2024 Oct;40(10):549-554. doi: 10.1089/AID.2024.0050.

Safety and immunogenicity after a 30-month boost of a subtype C ALVAC-HIV (vCP2438) vaccine prime plus bivalent subtype C gp120/MF59 vaccine boost (HVTN 100): A phase 1-2 randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial.

Naicker V, Laher F, Bekker LG, Seaton KE, Allen M, De Rosa S, Yates NL, Mkhize NN, Saunders K, Heptinstall J, Malahleha M, Mngadi K, Daniels B, Innes C, Yu C, Modise T, Bekker V, Grunenberg N, Furch B, Miner MD, Phogat S, Diazgranados CA, Gurunathan S, Koutsoukos M, Van Der Meeren O, Roxby AC, Ferrari G, Morris L, Montefiori D, McElrath MJ, Tomaras GD, Moodie Z.

PLOS Glob Public Health. 2024 Sep 20;4(9):e0003319. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0003319.

Study protocol for Sauti ya Vijana (The Voice of Youth): A hybrid-type 1 randomized trial to evaluate effectiveness and implementation of a mental health and life skills intervention to improve health outcomes for Tanzanian youth living with HIV.

Mollel GJ, Ketang'enyi E, Komba L, Mmbaga BT, Shayo AM, Boshe J, Knettel B, Gallis JA, Turner EL, O'Donnell K, Baumgartner JN, Ogbuoji O, Dow DE.

PLoS One. 2024 Aug 26;19(8):e0305471. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0305471.

Psychological processes and alcohol reduction in patients with chronic hepatitis C: Results from the HepART trial.

Evon DM, Yao J, Zimmer C, Muir AJ, Hendershot CS, Proeschold-Bell RJ.

Alcohol Clin Exp Res (Hoboken). 2024 Aug;48(8):1541-1551. doi: 10.1111/acer.15400.

Understanding the Stigma Experience of Men Living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Qualitative Meta-synthesis.

Janek SE, Hatoum S, Ledbetter L, Relf MV.

AIDS Behav. 2024 Aug;28(8):2500-2533. doi: 10.1007/s10461-024-04329-8.

Understanding the Social Dimensions and Context in HIV Research: Instrument Adaptation is More than Just Translation.

Mtei RJ, Kilonzo MN, Pan W, Kisamo DH, Kisigo G, Nyblade L, Kajula L, Relf MV.

J Assoc Nurses AIDS Care. 2024 Jul-Aug;35(4):356-360. doi: 10.1097/jnc.0000000000000465.

Is HIV epidemic control by 2030 realistic?

Beyrer C, Tomaras GD, Gelderblom HC, Gray GE, Janes HE, Bekker LG, Millett G, Pantaleo G, Buchbinder S, Corey L.

Lancet HIV. 2024 Jul;11(7):e489-e494. doi: 10.1016/S2352-3018(24)00098-5.

Viral Envelope Evolution in Simian-HIV-Infected Neonate and Adult-Dam Pairs of Rhesus Macaques.

Giorgi EE, Li H, Hora B, Shaw GM, Wagh K, Williams WB.

Viruses. 2024 Jun 25;16(7):1014. doi: 10.3390/v16071014.

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