Network Committees

The HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) brings together a global community of experts dedicated to advancing HIV prevention science. Science committees and working groups guide the Network’s research priorities and operational strategies. These committees play a critical role in prioritizing the science and ensuring that every study reflects our highest standards of scientific rigor, community engagement, and co-creation.

Science Committees

Science Committees catalyze and solicit science generation, evaluate scientific proposals and concepts submitted by network members and collaborators, support and benchmark protocol development, and help prioritize science within the overarching missions of the HPTN’s mandate. These committees are led and composed of subject-matter experts in implementation science, product development, new health technologies, and sexually transmitted infections.

Network Oversight

The Executive Committee (EC) is the key decision-making body in the HPTN and sets the overall HPTN scientific agenda. The HPTN PIs co-chair the EC and are responsible for ensuring the efficient development and implementation of the HPTN scientific agenda as well as managing the Network and coordinating activities across the Leadership & Operations Center (LOC), Laboratory Center (LC) and the Statistical and Data Management Center (SDMC).

 

Includes:

  • Principal Investigators (PIs)
  • International Investigator
  • Past PI and Co-PI
  • SDMC PI & LC PI
  • LOC Director
  • Community Representative
  • 2 NIH Representatives
  • 2 Site Representatives (domestic and international)

The primary responsibility of the Manuscript Review Committee (MRC) is to ensure that abstracts, posters, presentations, and manuscripts that contain data from HPTN studies are developed, reviewed and endorsed, according to the HPTN Publications Policy prior to submission for publication. Reviews are conducted mainly via email with written feedback provided to the submitting author(s).

The MRC Coordinator will facilitate the review and response by the MRC members ensuring the MRC chair(s), Network Central Resources (Leadership and Operations Center, Statistical and Data Management Center, Laboratory Center), and other subject matter experts, review the documents as appropriate. In addition to and in parallel with the MRC review, manuscripts reporting primary endpoint results, must also be reviewed by the HPTN Principal Investigators within the same timeframe as the MRC review.

Additional details can be found in Sections 4 and 21 of the HPTN MOP.

The PEC is responsible for overseeing a continuous and comprehensive evaluation of the HPTN. The PEC designs and directs implementation and reporting of the internal evaluation of the HPTN. This includes assessing performance of the CTUs as well as key organizations and entities that are also part of the HPTN (e.g., Leaderships and Operations Center (LOC), SDMC, Laboratory Center (LC) and protocol teams).

The goal of the evaluation is to provide data to assist leadership in making any decisions or changes necessary to improve HPTN functioning. In regard to the CTUs, the primary purpose of the evaluation is to provide data to determine if the sites are contributing effectively to the protocols assigned and to elicit corrective action, if necessary, so that all sites are functioning at peak performance level.

The SRC is responsible for providing the HPTN Executive Committee (EC) with a thorough scientific, ethical and operational assessment of protocols. The SRC ensures that study protocols are statistically, operationally, and ethically sound as well as accurate, consistent, complete and, to the extent possible, standardized relative to other HPTN protocols.

The SMC functions as an arm of the EC to provide a review of the conduct of all HPTN studies. Active HPTN studies are typically reviewed by the SMC within the first four to six months of study implementation and thereafter, approximately every six months including prior to Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) reviews. The Statistical and Data Management Center (SDMC) Principal Investigator (PI) in collaboration with HPTN Leadership will determine the need for and frequency of SMC reviews for each study.