HIV Clinical Topics in Antiretroviral Therapy workshop 2024

Cristina Mussini has been Full Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy since 2011. She is also the Director of the Clinic of Infectious Diseases, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Policlinico, in Modena, Italy. She received her degree in medicine and surgery from the University of Modena in 1987 and completed a specialization in infectious diseases in 1990.

Cristina has published more than 200 papers in index journals with a total of above 900 and with an H-index of 55 (Google Scholar).

Cristina is a long-standing member of several organizations, including: the National AIDS Committee of the Italian Ministry of Health from 2009 to 2016; the Governing Board of the European AIDS Clinical Society since 2000; and the Scientific Committees for the European AIDS Conferences, HIV Glasgow and the Icona Cohort Study since 2008. She is Chair of the ESGIE, the ESCMID Study Group for Infections in the Elderly.

Josep M Llibre, MD, PhD, received his MD in the Universitat de Barcelona, and obtained his specialty in Internal Medicine and his PhD in the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is a member of the panel of Antiretroviral treatment guidelines at the GeSIDA group (AIDS group of the SEIMC Spanish society), and an expert advisor of the Catalan Health Institute (ICS) on antiretroviral treatment and hepatitis C (PADEICS). He started caring for patients with HIV/AIDS at the beginning of the epidemic in Spain in 1987. His main areas of interest in HIV Medicine include the clinical implications of HIV-1 resistance, the analysis of safety and efficacy in HIV-1 antiretroviral treatment clinical trials (both in naïve and pre-treated patients), with a special interest in drug efficacy and pharmacoeconomics, and hepatitis C co-infection. He has published widely in journals and book chapters, as well as HIV/AIDS medical webs, on clinical aspects of HIV-1 treatment and care, HIV-1 resistance, clinical reviews, positioning papers, treatment intensification and simplification strategies, and participated in many pivotal clinical trials. He has also published in basic science research journals. He collaborates as an editor and/or peer-reviewing with many top international medical journals. He is involved in HIV Medical Educational training in Spain and other European, as well as Asian Countries.

University of Bonn, Germany

Department of Infectious Diseases, Odense University Hospital.

Dr. Gandhi is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Director of HIV Clinical Services and Education at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Gandhi is  site leader of the MGH AIDS Clinical Research Site in the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG). He is also the Co-Director and Principal Investigator of the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). Dr. Gandhi is a member of the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel. He is also a scientific member of the Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents, and Chair of the International Antiviral Society-USA Panel on Antiretroviral Drugs for Treatment and Prevention of HIV in Adults. Dr. Gandhi is Editor-in-Chief of NEJM Journal Watch Infectious Diseases. Dr. Gandhi graduated from Harvard Medical School, completed his medical residency and chief residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and his infectious diseases fellowship training at Johns Hopkins Hospital.  He has been on the faculty of the Infectious Diseases Division at MGH since 2000.

Dr. Jose I Bernardino is a Consultant Physician in HIV Medicine and Infectious diseases at the Hospital Universitario La Paz. He is member of the High-level Isolation Unit of La Paz- Carlos III Hospital. He is member of the faculty of the Young Investigators Group of the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS), and member of the Europeans AIDS Trial network NEAT-ID and International Network for Strategic Initiatives in Global HIV trials (INSIGHT). He is author of more than 90 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including original articles, and commentaries. His fields of interests span antiretroviral therapy strategies, ART toxicity, non-infectious complications and comorbidities in HIV positive adults and aging.

Professor Yvonne Gilleece trained in Dublin and London, and is Honorary Clinical Professor and Consultant in HIV Medicine & Sexual Health at Brighton & Sussex Medical School and University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. She is a national and international leader on HIV and was elected Chair of BHIVA in January 2023. Prior to this she was elected as a BHIVA trustee to serve on the Executive Committee (2016-2019, 2019–2022) and was also elected as Honorary Secretary (2019- 2022). Professor Gilleece specialises in HIV in Women and is immediate past Chair of the BHIVA Pregnancy Guidelines, Chair of WAVE, a subcommittee of the European AIDS Clinical Society, and Founder and Chair of SWIFT, promoting research in women living with HIV. She leads the HIV Women’s Clinic Sunflower in Brighton. She also teaches at BSMS, on the BHIVA inpatients and Dip HIV courses and at EACS Summer School. She was Vice Chair of the BHIVA Guidelines Subcommittee (2017-2019), was a member of the BHIVA Hepatitis and Conference Subcommittees and has contributed as an author to additional BHIVA guidelines (Adult Treatment, 2015, SRH 2019). She also specialises in HIV and Bone and HIV and Hepatitis Coinfection & Liver Dysfunction and regularly publishes research in all her subspecialty fields.

Georg Behrens is Professor for T Cell Immunology at Hannover Medical School, Germany. He is specialist in internal medicine, immunology and infectious disease and trained at the Immunology Division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia.

He is principal investigator of national and international studies in HIV medicine and was president of the German AIDS Society from 2011-2019. For many years, we was Board Member of the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) and chair of the EACS Treatment Guidelines. He is NEAT-ID steering committee member, co-chair of the TTU-HIV within the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), and chair of the MD/PhD Program Molecular Medicine.

Ole Kirk has been an ID consultant since 2011 and works at Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark, sharing his time between an ID in-patient ward and a HIV out-patient ward. He is also an adjunct professor in infectious diseases at University of Southern Denmark.

Since 1997, Ole has been engaged in HIV medicine and European research activities, in particular in management of the EuroSIDA Study, but also in other large cohort collaborations such as the DAD Study and COHERE. Since 2006, he has coordinated the TB-HIV Studies including 62 sites in Latin America, Western Europe and Eastern Europe.

Ole has published approximately 200 articles, mainly within research areas such HIV epidemiology, uptake of and response to ART across Europe as well as toxicity to ART, often with a perspective of regional differences across Europe. Another research priority has been HIV and opportunistic infections. In recent years he has been focusing on special clinical issues for PLWH in Eastern Europe, and in particular tuberculosis.

Ole is present chair of the OI panel of EACS Guidelines Committee and has over the last 15 years been actively involved in teaching activities for HIV clinicians, with special focus on colleagues in Eastern Europe. This includes organizing local HIV seminars, participating in WHO mentoring programmes for Ukrainian clinicians and running monthly videoconferences for HIV clinicians in Georgia and Ukraine.

In Denmark, Ole has been organizing and leading post-graduate courses of HIV infection and HIV care for Danish ID clinicians since 2013, and he is present chair of the Danish Society of Infectious Diseases.

Martí Vall-Mayans is Faculty Specialist and Senior Researcher at the STI and Neglected Tropical Skin Diseases Unit from the Department of Infectious Diseases and Fight Infections Foundation of Hospital Germans Trias Pujol in Badalona, Catalonia (Spain). Former WHO Consultant, he is member of the editorial board of the IUSTI-*Europe guidelines and Scientific Chair of the 2020 European IUSTI congress. His research interests include the implementation of alternative treatments and strategies for treponemal diseases (Trep-*AB ERC Project) and the study of emerging infectious diseases.

He earned his MD and PhD from Autonomous University of Barcelona (Barcelona, 1982 and 1989), a Diploma of Tropical Medicine (Barcelona, 1983) and a Màster of Public Health (Houston, 1986).

Dr. Nicolo Girometti is a consultant physician in HIV and sexual health at 56 Dean Street, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital (London, UK). He obtained his specialist degree in infectious diseases and HIV medicine at Bologna University (Bologna, Italy). He has a research interest in HIV prevention strategies and ageing in people living with HIV.

University of Bonn, Germany

Deborah Konopnicki is an internal medicine and infectious disease specialist graduated from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in 2000. She has been working in Saint-Pierre University Hospital in Brussels since 1997 and is now senior physician in the Infectious Diseases department and AIDS Reference Center.  In June 2014, she presented her PhD on Infection with high risk Human Papillomavirus  (HRHPV) among HIV-positive women: epidemiology, natural history and impact of combined antiretroviral therapy.  She is particularly involved in care for women living with HIV and is member of the WAVE (Women Against Viruses in Europe) and EACS (European AIDS Clinical Society).

Adrià Curran is a staff physician of the Infectious Diseases Department of the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and is the coordinator of the Anal Dysplasia Screening Unit of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital. He has carried out specific training on HPV anal dysplasia in HIV patients at the University of San Francisco (CA, USA) with Prof. Joel Palefsky. He is a member of the International Anal Neoplasia Society. He participates as a researcher in multiple international clinical trials and has published more than 100 articles in national and international journals and book chapters on various aspects of HIV infection, HPV and its treatment.

Nuria Espinosa has been practicing as a physician since 2008, the last 15 years in Seville, at the Clinical Unit of Infectious Diseases, Microbiology and Preventive Medicine of the Hospital Virgen del Rocio. Specializing in the care of patients with HIV, an activity she has practiced exclusively since 2012, Nuria Espinosa’s interests also include emerging pathogens and fever of unknown origin, the main topic of her PhD thesis in 2016. Nuria Espinosa is also a member of the Research group at the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBiS) and has participated as principal investigator, sub-investigator and collaborator in multiple projects in the field of HIV and antiretroviral treatment. Since 2018 she has served as chair of the HIV group of the Andalusian Society of Infectious Diseases. Since 2020, following the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been active in the coordination and hospital care of patients with SARS CoV-2.