Director, TX D-CFAR, Administrative Core: Thomas P. Giordano, M.D., MPH
Professor of Medicine, Chief of Infectious Diseases, and MD Anderson Foundation Chair at Baylor College of Medicine
Dr. Giordano is a clinical and health services researcher who focuses on access and retention in care for adults with HIV infection, especially persons from minority and disadvantaged backgrounds. For 17 years, Dr. Giordano was the Medical Director of HIV Services for the Harris Health System, which operates the Thomas Street Health Center, one of the largest HIV clinics in the United States. He is also the chief of Clinical Effectiveness and Population Health at the Center for Innovation in Quality and Safety (IQuESt), a VA health services research center. He has studied numerous interventions to improve HIV outcomes, including routine universal HIV testing and peer mentoring for persons out of care. Dr. Giordano has had HIV research funding from NIH, CDC, HRSA, and VA. He is a voting member of the Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents, which produces the most widely referenced HIV treatment guidelines in the United States.
Email: tpg@bcm.edu
Co-director, TX D-CFAR, Administrative Core: Roberto Arduino, M.D.
Professor of Medicine at McGovern Medical School, UTHealth
Dr. Arduino founded and leads the NIH-funded Houston Advancing Research Team (HART) Clinical Research Site. Dr. Arduino’s major career focus has been HIV care and clinical research in HIV-associated inflammation, HIV-associated co-morbidities, and HIV cure/remission. He has been the site principal investigator for phase I and phase II clinical trials with pharmacokinetic assessments and phase III clinical trials exploring the safety and efficacy of antiretroviral drugs and new HIV treatment strategies.
The HART Clinical Research Site leads several protocols for the Advancing Clinical Therapeutics Globally (ACTG) network and the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN).
Co-director, TX D-CFAR, Administrative Core: Deepak Kaushal, Ph.D.
Professor, Texas Biomedical Research Institute
Dr. Kaushal is a highly accomplished investigator in the area of tuberculosis (TB) and SIV infections of rhesus macaques. He administers the P51 base grant at the SNPRC, including its Director’s Office, Leadership Group, Scientific Units and Cores, Research Coordination Unit, Outreach, Pilot Grants Program, Colony Management, and Animal Care and their use in Research. Dr. Kaushal is responsible for the overall maintenance and further development of the various national resources that exist at the SNPRC. His own NIH-funded research program focuses on several aspects of TB and TB/HIV co-infections. He uses non-human primates to gain insights to develop vaccines and treatment options for TB and TB/HIV co-infections.
Email: dkaushal@txbiomed.org
Core-director, Developmental Core: Elizabeth Chiao, M.D.
Professor at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Adjunct Professor at Baylor College of Medicine
Dr. Chiao is an international expert in HIV-associated malignancies, with an emphasis on HPV-related cancers and pre-cancers. Her work has influenced national guidelines for cancer screening among people living with HIV. She has had numerous R01 grants on the epidemiology and screening of HIV-related cancers. She has extensive leadership and mentoring experience, including fellows and faculty from Baylor College of Medicine, MD Anderson, UTHealth, and other institutions. Dr. Chiao chairs the Solid Tumor Working Group of the AIDS Malignancy Consortium and an NCI clinical trials consortium. She is also a member of the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors’ HIV-malignancies working group.
Email: eychiao@mdanderson.org
Director, Developmental Core; Co-director, SU-SWG: Diane Santa Maria, DrPH, MSN, RN, PHNA-BC, FSAHM, FAAN
Jane and Robert Cizik Distinguished Chair, Dean at Cizik School of Nursing, UTHealth
Diane Santa Maria, DrPH, MSN, RN, PHNA-BC, FSAHM, FAAN, is Dean and a Professor in the Department of Research at Cizik School of Nursing at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston). She holds the Jane and Robert Cizik Distinguished Chair and Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair in Nursing Education Leadership. She is a former Visiting Professor at the University of California San Francisco Center for AIDS Prevention Studies and currently serves as a co-investigator and co-director of the Developmental Center for AIDS Research (D-CFAR) Mentoring Program and Substance Use Scientific Working Group. She has completed numerous studies among youth experiencing homelessness that address HIV and substance use prevention.
She is currently leading an NIH-funded R01 randomized controlled trial testing the efficacy of an ecological momentary-enhanced nurse case management HIV prevention and care coordination intervention among youth 16-25 experiencing homelessness and PrEP adherence among high-risk youth. This study is also assessing the impact of COVID-19, uptake of vaccine, and prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. She is also leading an NIH funded R34 study to co-adapt a mindfulness intervention to address emotion regulation, stress management, and impulse control among sheltered youth. She has expertise in the development, testing, and refinement of various HIV prevention interventions among high-risk communities, especially marginalized young people and those experiencing homelessness.
Co-director, Basic Science and Developmental Core: Mahesh Mohan, DVM, Ph.D.
Professor at Texas Biomedical Research Institute
Dr. Mohan is a professor in the Host Pathogen Interaction Program at Texas Biomedical Research Institute. He leads the Infectious Disease, Immunology and Control Unit and serves as a member of the Research Advisory Committee at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute. He has been NIH-funded for 11 years. He has extensive experience performing basic HIV pathogenesis research using the SIV-infected rhesus macaque model of AIDS. Specifically, his research focuses on studying the molecular pathogenesis of HIV/SIV induced gastrointestinal and neurological dysfunction. Recently, his lab began exploring feasible strategies to suppress chronic immune activation/inflammation. He has published several manuscripts demonstrating the potential of cannabinoids to inhibit HIV/SIV induced gastrointestinal and neuroinflammation. He serves on numerous NIH and other grant review panels. Dr. Mohan is an editorial board member of the Journal of Clinical Medicine.
Email: mmohan@txbiomed.org
Director, Clinical and Biostatistics Core: Jordan E. Lake, M.D., MSc
Associate Professor at McGovern Medical School, UT Health
Dr. Lake serves as director of the HIV Medicine fellowship for UT Health. Her translational research portfolio focuses on developing novel interventions to prevent and treat metabolic disease in adults with HIV. Dr. Lake focuses on diseases related to adipose tissue dysfunction (e.g., fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, obesity) as well as metabolic disease in people living with HIV. Dr. Lake has a strong track record of NIH, industry partner, and foundation funding. She also has extensive mentoring expertise through her role as a Program Co-Director for the NIMH-funded South American Program in HIV/STI Prevention Research.
Email: jordan.e.lake@uth.tmc.edu
Director, Basic Science Core: Jason Kimata, Ph.D.
Associate Professor at Baylor College of Medicine
Dr. Kimata serves as the associate director of the Graduate Program in Immunology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. He began conducting HIV research in 1993 with studies of how viral genetic variation affects SIV replication, immune evasion, persistence, and disease progression in macaques. His HIV pathogenesis, cure and prevention research program has been continuously funded by NIH for 20 years. He has served on numerous NIH and other grant review panels. He has mentored more than 50 undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, visiting scientists and junior faculty, including two previous awardees of the Creative and Novel Ideas in HIV research program.
Email: jkimata@bcm.edu
Co-director, Basic Science Core: Maria C. Rodriguez-Barradas, M.D.
Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine
Dr. Rodriguez-Barradas is chief of Infectious Diseases and director of the HIV Program at Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center (MEDVAMC). She has served as MEDVAMC site PI for several national and international VA- and NIH-funded, multi-site HIV research networks and randomized clinical trials. She is the site PI for the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS), a study that has focused for the last 20 years on the impact of medical comorbidities, substance use, and polypharmacy in outcomes in people living with HIV.
Email: riar@bcm.edu
Co-director, Clinical and Biostatistics Core: Hulin Wu, Ph.D.
Professor of Biostatistics and Data Science at the School of Public Health, UT Health
Dr. Wu is the Betty Wheless Trotter professor and chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science at UTHealth School of Public Health. He is a pioneer and leader in developing statistical methods and computational models for HIV viral dynamics and AIDS clinical studies and has a long track record of NIH funding for this work. Dr. Wu developed HIV viral fitness modeling tools to study HIV mutations. He also designed and participated in more than 15 AIDS clinical trials as well as basic science and translational studies on HIV research.
Email: hulin.wu@uth.tmc.edu
Co-director SU-SWG: Joy Schmitz, Ph.D.
Professor at McGovern Medical School, UTHealth
Dr. Schmitz is the Louis A. Faillace professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Neurobehavioral Research on Addiction (CNRA) at UTHealth. She has authored more than 140 peer-reviewed publications and numerous book chapters. Dr. Schmitz has a long-standing research program focusing on the development and evaluation of behavioral and pharmacological treatments for substance use disorders. Her work seeks to improve patient outcomes by identifying moderators and mediators of treatment effects. She collaborates with leaders in neuroscience and genetics to develop targeted treatments aimed at biological factors underlying drug addiction. Dr. Schmitz has a long track record of NIH funding and has completed studies with the NIDA Clinical Trials Network. She serves as a standing member of the NIH’s Interventions to Prevent and Treat Addictions (IPTA) Study Section. She is a founding member of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) and an associate editor for Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
Email: joy.m.schmitz@uth.tmc.edu