HPTN South America Regional Meeting: In Review
The HPTN South America Regional Meeting was held March 26–28, at the Swissotel in Lima, Peru. The event attracted representatives from clinical trials units and clinical research sites participating in HPTN 083 and HVTN 704/HPTN 085 (AMP) including principal investigators, investigators of record, study coordinators, study clinicians/nurses, laboratory representatives, pharmacists, and staff responsible for community engagement, cohort recruitment, and retention. Additional participants included HPTN leadership, invited speakers, and study sponsors. After the first day of the meeting, time and space were allotted for networking and collaboration. The third day featured an HPTN 083 South America sites meeting.
The theme for Session 1 on the first day of the meeting was “The HIV Prevention Science Agenda: Where Are We? What Is New?” and included presentations from the network principal investigators and invited speakers, as well as a panel discussion. Presentation titles are listed below, including links to presented materials.
Monday, March 26
- State of the Network
- Myron Cohen, MD, HPTN co-principal investigator and director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC
- Substance Use in MSM and HIV in South America
- Raquel de Boni, MD, PhD, MSc, professor and assistant researcher, Instituto National de Infectologia Evandro Chagas/ Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Alcohol Abuse in MSM and HIV
- Frederick Altice, MD, MA, director of clinical and community research, and professor of medicine and public health, Yale University, New Haven, CT
- Transgender People in South American Context
- Javier Lama, MD, MPH, principal investigator, IMPACTA Peru CTU, Lima, Peru
- Mechanisms & Ways to Generate Research Concepts and Address Research Gaps
- Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, MPA, HPTN co-principal investigator and professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University, New York
- Panel Discussion: Strategies to Increase Community Literacy in PrEP
- Luciana Kamel, MS, community educator and counselor, Laboratory of Clinical Research (LaPClin)/Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- José Luis Castro, communications officer, Via Libre, Lima, Peru
- Leo Perelis, HPTN 083 Community Working Group member, Hospital GAJM Ramos Mejía, Buenos Aires, Argentina
The theme for Session 2 on the second day of the meeting was “The HIV Prevention Science Agenda: Where Do We Go from Here?” and was followed by concurrent breakout discussions for Session 3. Session 4 covered “Enhancing Study Conduct: Lessons Learnt from Implementation of HPTN Studies” and included speakers from the HPTN Laboratory Center and Statistical and Data Management Center. The final session of the day included a presentation on the HPTN Scholars program. Presentation titles are listed below, including links to presented materials.
Tuesday, March 27
- Availability of Oral PrEP Through the National Program in Brazil
- Adele Benzaquen, MD, PhD, director, STIs, HIV/AIDS and viral hepatitis, Brazil Ministry of Health, Brasilia, Brazil
- STIs in the Era of Effective Biomedical HIV Prevention: Yes, We Are Back to the Future
- Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, MPH, director, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL
- HIV Testing in the Era of PrEP
- Raphael Landovitz, MD, MSc, HPTN 083 protocol chair and associate professor of medicine, UCLA Center for Clinical AIDS Research & Education, Los Angeles
- STIs in the Context of HIV Prevention
- Breno Santos, MD, principal investigator, Hospital Nossa Senhora da Conceição, Porto Alegre, Brazil
- Substance Use (Including Alcohol)
- Pedro Gonzales, MD, MAS, principal investigator, San Miguel CRS, San Miguel, Peru
- Transgender Prevention Research
- Omar Sued, MD, PhD, principal investigator, Fundación Huésped CRS, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Community Engagement in South America
- María del Rosario León Rhandomy, community educator, IMPACTA Peru CTU, Lima, Peru
- How Best Can the Region Prepare to Engage in New HPTN Studies? What are the Gaps?
- Beatriz Grinsztejn, MD, PhD, HPTN 083 protocol co-chair, principal investigator, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), Rio de Janiero, Brazil
- Community Engagement Including Recruitment & Retention Strategies
- Hugo Sánchez Sarmiento, community educator, CITBM-UNIDEC, Lima, Peru
- Monitoring Data Quality & MediData Rave
- Lynda Emel*, PhD, associate director, HPTN Statistical and Data Management Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle
- *presented on behalf of Leslie Cottle, senior clinical data manager, HPTN Statistical and Data Management Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle
- Lynda Emel*, PhD, associate director, HPTN Statistical and Data Management Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle
- Enhancing Laboratory Performances
- Mark Marzinke, PhD, co-director, HPTN Laboratory Center, assistant professor of pathology and medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
- Danielle Heyl, QA/QC coordinator, International Clinical Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
- CRS Performance
- Lynda Emel, PhD, associate director, HPTN Statistical and Data Management Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle
- HPTN Scholars Program
- Ken Mayer, MD, chair, HPTN MSM Scientific Committee; principal investigator, Fenway Health CRS; co-chair and medical research director, The Fenway Institute, Boston