Share Your Input on the Next NIH Strategic Plan for HIV Research by March 28

The NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR) is seeking input to inform the development of the next multi-year NIH Strategic Plan for HIV and HIV-Related Research, which will span 2026-2030. OAR leads the effort across NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices to establish HIV research priorities and develop the Strategic Plan.

OAR invites researchers, health care professionals, advocates and health advocacy organizations, scientific or professional organizations, public health officials, government agencies, and community members to provide input through the online process. Respondents are invited to propose research priorities within each goal and provide additional feedback on the new framework. Learn more, view additional details, and submit your feedback online until March 28, 2024.

News from the CFAR

DUSON article highlights work by Dr. Schenita Randolph and Dr. Ragan Johnson on innovative ways to educate Black women on the benefits of PrEP

A recent article from the Duke University School of Nursing shares a new publication by CFAR investigators:

The New England Journal of Medicine has published a study by Duke University School of Nursing professors Dr. Schenita Randolph, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN and Dr. Ragan Johnson, DNP, MSN, APRN-BC in which the two studied the feasibility of integrating salon stylists, edutainment videos, and PrEP navigators to help educate Black women on the benefits of PrEP (preexposure prophylaxis) in preventing HIV infections. This innovative new approach to HIV/AIDS prevention can be found in the Journal’s February 29th issue. 

While the study itself is the work of Dr.’s Randolph and Johnson, the idea of a formal training for stylists as conduits for HIV/AIDS prevention education actually came from stylists themselves. “In fact, providing continuing education units from the state board of cosmetology for the training was the idea of two beauty salon stylists who served as consultants on this project,” says Dr. Randolph. “In our formative work we conducted focus groups and individual interviews and stylists told us that conversations around sexual health and relationships were common in most beauty salons, which the literature has supported for some time now.” 

Dr. Schenita Randolph and Dr. Ragan Johnson

Beauty salons have long been important community resources for Black women, and stylists are considered trusted leaders. By enlisting the stylists in the fight against the negative perceptions of PrEP, Dr.’s Randolph and Johnson were able to bypass barriers to reaching Black women and meet these women where they are most comfortable and receptive to intimate conversations and receiving new information.

The stylists went through two 2-hour workshops on HIV, PrEP, and infection control as well as training on how to be community opinion leaders. After that they were given signage to display in their salons in order to spark conversations around HIV/AIDS prevention. “Stylists were very receptive to the workshops,” says Dr. Johnson. “There was lively discussion and a lot of questions about HIV transmission, PrEP as prevention, and other sexually transmitted infections as well. Stylists had the opportunity to practice communication with each other using case-based scenarios. They were really willing to learn from each other’s communication styles and develop their own comfort level.”

On the receiving end, 105 women from three urban counties in North Carolina were recruited into the study. Of those women, 72 (69%) completed the pretest survey, with 44 of them (42%) going on to complete the post-test survey. Dr.’s Randolph and Johnson found that among the women who had been unaware of PrEP prior to the study, knowledge of PrEP and HIV/AIDS prevention increased significantly, as did their views on use of PrEP itself. Intention to use PrEP changed for 15 of the participants in the study, with 1 participant going on to begin PrEP usage and another 10 indicating that they had moved from “precontemplation” of use to “contemplation” as characterized by the Motivational PrEP Cascade. Perhaps most importantly, the study indicated that a majority of women were able to personally relate to the messaging around PrEP, a vital step in making PrEP stand out as an option in protecting their sexual health.

“I think the main thing that stands out to me is the excitement from women in seeing themselves in a storyline that provided for them information about PrEP,” Dr. Randolph points out. “Women customers consistently reported, ‘I didn't know this was for women; I saw commercials about it but never knew it was for me.’ This reinforces the urgent need to include Black women in the development of health communications and messaging for HIV prevention.”

For the pair, this study was a vital tool in furthering DUSON’s commitment to advancing health equity. “In the context of PrEP as a prevention tool for HIV, there are multiple known social determinants of health and barriers that contribute to why this population has less than 2% usage of PrEP - accessibility, trust, providers not informing them of its use, cost, stigma, just to name a few,” says Dr. Randolph. “We have developed with Black women implementation strategies that try to address all of the barriers.”

“And we didn't do it alone,” she adds, “this was a community-partnered project that considered real-world delivery and sustainability. Two components that are critical to addressing equity.”

Dr. Johnson agrees. “I see this as an exemplar of DUSON’s goal of advancing health equity,” she says. “HIV has had disparate outcomes in the Black community for far too long, and Black women especially have not been prioritized. Partnering with Black women to design a project that they wanted, enjoyed, and were willing to lead and share with others is exactly the format to advance health equity.”

Read this story on the DUSON website and read the NEJM publication.

To learn more about the UPDOs program:

• HIV Program Turns Hair Salons Into Educational Hot Spots, POZ
• Hair Stylists Become Health Influencers in HIV Pilot Project, Medscape Medical News

More from Dr. Randolph and Dr. Johnson:

• Reasons Over Risks: NPs and HIV Prevention for Black Women, The Journal for Nurse Practitioners
• Visit the HEEAT Research Lab website

UAB CFAR Seminar: Using Health Informatics to Identify and Link People with Opioid Use Disorder to Clinical Care and Research Initiatives

Thursday, March 8, 2024 | 2pm ET| Zoom

Zoom ID 816 3115 2114

Register for the seminar.

Inter-CFAR Symposium: Tackling HIV, HCV, and overdose among people who use drugs

Friday, March 8, 2024 | 11:30am-3pm ET| Join by Zoom

The UC San Diego HIV Institute, San Diego Center for AIDS Research, and Providence/Boston CFAR are pleased to present:

Inter-CFAR Symposium: Tackling HIV, HCV, and overdose among people who use drugs

Can’t be there in person? Join by Zoom

Session I (11:30 am – 12:55 pm ET), CME offered

Brandon Marshall (Brown University, RI): Lessons from Launching Project SAFER: A comparative evaluation of overdose prevention centers in Rhode Island and New York City. 

Joshua Barocas (University of Colorado Anshutz, CO): Size does matter: why accurate prevalence estimates of drug use and HIV risk are crucial to ending the epidemics. 

Natasha Martin (UC San Diego, CA): Using network modeling to inform HIV incidence estimation through incorporation of molecular data

Session II (1pm – 2pm ET)

Jack Stone (University of Bristol, UK): Evaluating the impact of increased provision of low dead space syringes on HIV and HCV transmission among people who inject drugs: A modelling analysis for 21 countries

Adelina Artenie (University of Bristol, UK): Improving estimates of HCV and HIV incidence in people who inject drugs using different methodologies and data

Peter Vickerman (University of Bristol, UK): Modelling the impact of scaling up case finding and treatment for HCV for people who inject drugs in England 

Session III (2pm – 3pm pm ET) 

Louisa Degenhardt (University of New South Wales, Australia): Using linked data to increase understanding of health and social outcomes for people who are opioid dependent: A summary of work examining impacts of opioid agonist treatment among people in Australia

Annick Bórquez (UC San Diego, CA): Fatal overdose predictions at county-level across the United States: comparing the performance of statistical and machine learning models.

Matthew Hickman (University of Bristol, UK): EPHESUS - Evaluating drug related deaths in Scotland and the impact of Opioid Agonist Treatment and Multiple Parameter Estimation of Prevalence (no Zoom)

Join by Zoom.

CFAR Immunology Core Seminar with Dr. Elena Giorgi

Wednesday, March 13, 2024 | 2-3pm ET| 143 Jones Bldg & Zoom

Dr. Elena Giorgi will present an in-person and virtual seminar, "Two decades of HIV-1 Envelope Evolution in C clade: Impacts on Viral Recognition from Broadly Neutralizing and Fc-Mediating Antibodies."

By completing the registration, you will receive a calendar invitation with location and Zoom link details.

Register for the seminar.

Registration closes TODAY! Immunology Core Workshop - Sequence Analysis with Dr. Elena Giorgi

Thursday, March 14, 2024 | 9am-12pm ET| Carmichael Building Room 47-215

Whether you are working with SARS-CoV-2, HIV-1, or any other viral pathogen, sequence analysis has become an important tool in many aspects of virology and immunology: from understanding viral evolution, transmission, and emergence of drug and/or antibody resistance, to designing novel vaccine immunogens and clinical interventions.

This workshop will provide a step-by-step guideline on how to use sequence visualization and analysis tools available from the LANL database to build a pipeline from sequence reads to phylogenetic trees. Highlights include: creating a sequence alignment, visualizing sequence diversity, setting up a genetic signature analysis, and searching the LANL sequence and antibody databases. Examples and hands-on exercises will be provided. While most will be using HIV env sequences, the analysis pipeline and tools can be applied to any pathogen. For HCV and SARS-CoV-2 tailored versions of the tools are available.

This workshop will be held in room 47-215 of the Carmichael Bldg and will be IN-PERSON ONLY. Registration will be limited to the first 30 registrants.

Learn more and register for the workshop.

DC CFAR Developmental Core Lecture Series: My Path to Independence in HIV Research featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci 

Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 4-5pm ET| Zoom

Please join us for the DC CFAR Developmental Core Lecture Series: My Path to Independence in HIV Research. Each hour-long session in this series will showcase prominent researchers from across the country and autobiographical accounts of their careers in HIV research, specifically their pathways to career and research independence.

Our next lecture will feature Dr. Anthony Fauci, Distinguished University Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Georgetown University School of Medicine and former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Fauci will discuss his perspectives on pursuing a research career in HIV-related science. We plan to follow his 30-minute presentation with a 30-minute Q&A session. We kindly ask that participants submit questions for Dr. Fauci in advance in the registration form linked below. Questions can be submitted in the chat box during the session as well.

Register for the session.

Immunology Core Workshop - Visualizing and Interpreting Macromolecular Structural Models

Friday, March 29, 2024 | 9am-12pm ET| TSCHE Classroom 3 (In-person interaction) or Virtual Webinar (observation only)

Macromolecular structure visualization is an essential step in understanding protein function at the atomic level. Directly visualizing macromolecular interactions, macromolecule shape, and small molecule interactions can provide important mechanistic insight into structure-function relationships that can in turn drive experimental design.

This full-day workshop will equip researchers with the skills necessary to identify already determined macromolecular structures, prepare theoretical structures, and visualize those structures using popular tools in structural biology. Importantly, all tools and databases needed for this work are well maintained and available freely to academic researchers.

Learn more and register for the workshop.

Save the Date: 2024 Mathews Lecture with Dr. John Wherry

Thursday, May 16, 2024 | 4-5:15pm ET| Great Hall of the Trent Semans Learning Center

“Molecular Mechanisms of CD8 T-Cell Exhaustion”

E. John Wherry, PhD

Chair, Department of Systems Pharmacology & Translational Therapeutics

Richard and Barbara Schiffrin President's Distinguished Professor  

Director, Institute for Immunology

Co-Program Leader, Immunobiology Program, Abramson Cancer Center

Co-Director, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy

Please mark your calendars and plan to attend on Thursday, May 16th, 2024, 4:00-5:15PM. Great Hall of the Trent Semans Learning Center, with a reception to immediately follow.

Scholarships open for the 5th HIV Research for Prevention Conference (HIVR4P 2024)

October 6-10, 2024| Lima, Peru & Virtual

Scholarship submissions for HIVR4P 2024, the 5th HIV Research for Prevention Conference, are now open! You are eligible for a scholarship if you are at least 18 years old on 6 October 2024, working, volunteering or studying in the area of HIV prevention and require support to attend HIVR4P 2024. For more information about the scholarship programme, types of financial support, how to apply and the Journalist Fellowship Programme, visit the HIVR4P 2024 scholarship page. 

Scholarship applications will be accepted until April 10th.

Learn more about HIVR4P 2024 and conference scholarships.

Applications due March 13 for the 2024 HIV Vaccine Science Academy

Please help share this information with eligible individuals!

• Are you an early- to mid-career HIV investigator or clinical scientist?
• Are you affiliated with or working in collaboration with an institution or university in central, eastern, western, or southern Africa?
• Are you interested in pursuing HIV vaccine research?

The Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise of IAS – the International AIDS Society – is pleased to announce that applications are open for the 2024 HIV Vaccine Science Academy. The academy awards fellowships to 15 early- to mid-career investigators and clinical scientists to take part in workshops on HIV vaccine research with international experts.

The objectives are to: 

• Provide training on state-of-the-art HIV vaccine research and development, notably vaccine design and the use of relevant scientific tools and skills (such as scientific writing).
• Provide a unique opportunity to engage and discuss with leaders in the HIV vaccine field, in a retreat-type setting, to build and facilitate collaborations in the search for an HIV vaccine.
• Support participants in establishing a sustainable network across different research institutions and creating momentum for African led research.

The academy will take place in Rwanda, May 7-9, 2024. Selected participants will receive full travel support. Deadline for applications is March 13, 2024.

Learn more and apply.

Apply for the Gilead Sciences Research Scholars Program

The Research Scholars Program supports innovative research from emerging investigators around the world to incorporate new perspectives in our pursuit of scientific understanding and progress. We believe that new, diverse voices and research topics are needed to advance scientific knowledge in areas of unmet medical need and create a healthier world. The program is designed to support any innovative basic, clinical, behavioral, epidemiological, implementation science and community-based participatory scientific research related to HIV.

The HIV program provides a minimum of 4 awards. Each award is funded up to $180,000 USD for two years, to be paid in annual.

Applications will be reviewed and selected by an independent Scientific Review Committee comprised of internationally recognized experts in basic and clinical research in the field of HIV. Gilead’s Research Scholars Program is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive scientific community.

Applicants must meet the following criteria:

• Hold an MD, DO, PhD, or equivalent degree at time of award
• Received your initial faculty appointment within the last 5 years at the time of application
• Have a strong career interest in HIV
• Have a research mentor with extensive experience in their field (co-mentorship is accepted)
• Be able to devote approximately 50% of professional time to research
• Be able to complete the proposed research within the 2-year award period

Q&A Webinar with Scientific Review Committee: June 6, 2024, 12-1 PM Eastern

Application Deadline: July 8, 2024

Learn more and apply.

Arwen the dog thinks cats shouldn't get all the credit...

Do you have a CFAR pet? Send Lizzy a photo for their opportunity for newsletter fame!

Have a new member of your team? Were you forwarded this newsletter and want to sign up yourself? Please use and share this link to join the CFAR and receive all CFAR information and news.