This year the Providence/Boston CFAR's Annual Research Forum was held virtually on Wednesday, May 13, 2020 from 9:00 am to 1:10 pm.
Plenary speakers:
Our opening Keynote Address was given by Amy Justice, MD, MPH is C.N.H. Long Professor of Medicine (General Medicine) and Professor of Public Health (Health Policy); Co-Leader, Cancer Microbiology at Yale University. Dr. Justice is a Clinical Epidemiologist who has developed multiple large national cohorts based on data from the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System Electronic Medical Record enhanced with National Death Index and CMS data, patient completed surveys, DNA and tissue repositories, and stored pathology samples. She has two decades of experience in the processes required to clean, validate, and standardize raw EMR data and in its analysis using standard statistical methods, machine learning techniques, and cross cohort validations. Dr. Justice is presenting on "Implications of Current and Past Substance Use for those Aging with HIV".
Our closing Keynote Address was given by Victor Garcia-Martinez, PhD who is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is interested in interested in how human viruses cause human cancer, how HIV causes AIDS and why the immune system is not able to control viral infections. To evaluate the role of these genes in disease progression, hsi lab has developed in vitro and in vivo models that recapitulate specific aspects of viral infection. His research emphasis has been placed on humanized mice as models where human specific pathogens can be studied and where novel therapeutic interventions can be evaluated. He is presenting on "New Approaches for the Systemic Induction of HIV from Latency".
Highlighting the work of our Developmental Awardees
In addition to our invited presenters, past recipients of our Developmental Grant Program presented on their funded research. Presenters included: Katie Biello, Jackie Hughto, Hisashi Akiyama, Jun Tao, Lawrence Were and Joshua Barocas.