UCLA CFAR/AIDS Institute
Special Interdisciplinary Grand Rounds
Nathalia Holt, Ph.D.
Author of, “Cured: How the Berlin Patients Defeated HIV
and Forever Changed Medical Science”
“Chasing a Cure: The Story of the Berlin Patients”
Submissions Accepted
until March 9, 2014 Midnight
To Apply Click here
Information for Protégés Applying to APA Cyber Mentors Program
APA Cyber Mentors protégés participate in a two-year, e-collaboration and distance learning mentorship program designed to prepare doctoral-level behavioral and social scientists for careers as independent researchers in the area of HIV/AIDS and health disparities among populations of color and other communities disproportionately affected by the virus. Cyber Mentors utilizes state-of-the-art e-collaboration, and distance learning technologies (e.g., social media, webinars, etc.) to assist protégés achieve three major goals:
- Develop and implement a career development plan focused on building the capacity to conduct independent research in the area of HIV/AIDS and health disparities.
- Conceptualize, draft and submit a high-quality research application to an appropriate funding mechanism.
- Establish a mutually supportive network of professional colleagues with common research interests.
The Cyber Mentors program, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, matches early career protégés with mentors who are leaders in the field with a strong history of receiving National Institutes of Health-supported grants.
Mentoring is conducted through regular interactions over an Internet social media platform, by telephone and at face-to-face meetings. In addition to one-on-one mentoring, protégés participate in monthly, interactive, web-based seminars that address various research, methodological, ethical and administrative topics relevant to research careers in HIV/AIDS. Protégés also participate in small-group, research-development sessions every other month. These online, small-group sessions focus on the application of concepts learned in seminars to research proposals of protégés. Protégés also participate in a series of mock reviews where research proposals are reviewed, scored and discussed at length.
Protégé/mentor pairs have the opportunity to apply for up to $5,000 to support research or career development activities (e.g., preliminary data collection, attending additional conferences, etc).
For additional information click here
On January 23, 2014, UCLA CHIPTS hosted a one-day conference on the innovative use of technology for HIV prevention and care at the California Endowment in Los Angeles. This event was a collaborative activity of the Combination Prevention Core, Policy Core, and Development Core of CHIPTS. The conference was made possible by funds from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH058107) and additional support from the UCLA AIDS Institute, UCLA Center for AIDS Research, UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine, UCLA Interdisciplinary and Cross Campus Affairs, and Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.
The purpose of the conference was to bring together researchers, representatives of technology development companies, public policymakers, HIV service providers, and members of the HIV/AIDS community to share cutting-edge research and real-world application of social media, web-based, and mobile technologies for HIV prevention and care. The conference began with opening remarks by Dr. Steve Shoptaw, Co-Director of CHIPTS, and Dr. Sean Young, a CHIPTS investigator whose research focuses on social media and mobile health technologies. The event included keynote presentation from Dr. Indu Subaiya, CEO and Co-Founder at Health 2.0, and presentations from leading experts in the field of technology-based HIV prevention and care, such as Dr. Brian Mustanski of Northwestern University, Dr. Marguerita Lightfoot of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Lynn Miller and Dr. Eric Rice of the University of Southern California, Dr. Nina Harawa of Charles R. Drew University, Dr. Cathy Reback of Friends Research Institute, as well as CHIPTS investigators, Dr. Dallas Swendeman and Dr. Ian Holloway.
To provide a counter-point to the scientific presentations focusing on intervention development and implementation, there was a policy panel discussion that brought together experts in health technology development, HIV service delivery and law and policy to comment on the benefits and challenges to providing technology-based HIV prevention and care. Panelists included Mr. Ramin Bastani, Founder and CEO of HULA (www.GetHula.com), Mr. Brad Sears, JD, Executive Director of the UCLA Charles R. Williams Institute, Dr. Tina Henderson, Project Manager at JWCH Institute of Los Angeles, and Ms. Risa Flynn, Program Manager for Research at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. Each brought their individual perspectives to bear on the issue of health information security and privacy protection.
The conference ended with presentations from Dr. Susannah Allison, Program Officer at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) within the Infants, Children and Adolescents Research Program in the Division of AIDS Research, and Dr. Jacqueline Lloyd, Deputy Branch Chief and Health Scientist Administrator in the Prevention Research Branch in the Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Dr. Allison and Dr. Lloyd presented on the currently funded technology-based HIV prevention and care research, future directions and funding priorities for HIV and technology-based research at NIMH and NIDA.
The conference was attended by over 130 participants. Forty percent of the participants were staff from a community-based organization, 30% were researchers, faculty, staff, and/or student from a university/academic institution, 15% were representatives from a technology-development company, 10% were representatives from a health department or government entity, and 6% were members of the local community planning body and or consumers.
For abstracts of the conference presentations, please go here http://www.journalmtm.com/2014/volume-3-issue-1s/
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CHIPTS Cross-Core Meeting Keynote Address
Single-patient (n-of-1) trial:
A pragmatic clinical decision methodology for patient-centered comparative effectiveness research
Naihua Duan, Ph.D.
Division of Biostatistics, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University
Monday, January 13 3:00-4:00pm
Abstract
Single-patient trials (SPTs, a.k.a. n-of-1 trials) are multiple-period crossover trials conducted within individual patients to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of two or more treatments for each specific patient (Duan, Kravitz, Schmid, 2013, J. of Clinical Epidemiology). SPT has the potential to serve a rather unique dual role, both to inform individual treatment decisions in clinical care, and to support pragmatic patient-centered comparative effectiveness research. Dr. Duan gives a brief overview of the core methodology for SPT, and discuss key implementation issues, including:
• Indications and contraindications for clinical conditions and treatments suitable for evaluation with the SPT;
• Pros and cons for blinding and washout as design features for SPTs; and
• Statistical and information technology infrastructure for the implementation of SPTs.
Dr. Duan also discuss the interpretation of the SPT as human subjects research vs. quality improvement, and the broader issues involved in the production and consumption of generalizable knowledge in human subjects research vs. local knowledge that is often needed in quality improvement investigations.
References
Duan N, Kravitz RL, Schmid CH. Single-patient (n-of-1) trials: a pragmatic clinical decision methodology for patient-centered comparative effectiveness research. J Clin Epidemiol. 2013 Aug;66(8 Suppl):S21-8.
Kravitz RL, Duan N, eds, and the DEcIDE Methods Center N-of-1 Guidance Panel (Duan N, Eslick I, Gabler NB, Kaplan HC, Kravitz RL, Larson EB, Pace WD, Schmid CH, Sim I, Vohra S). Design and Implementation of N-of-1 Trials: A User’s Guide. AHRQ Publication No. 13-EHC122-EF. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; in press, www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/reports/final.cfm.
Cheung K, Duan N. Design of implementation studies for quality improvement programs: an effectiveness-cost-effectiveness framework. Am J Public Health. 2014 Jan;104(1):e23-30. Epub 2013 Nov 14.
Mohr DC, Cheung K, Schueller SM, Hendricks Brown C, Duan N. Continuous evaluation of evolving behavioral intervention technologies. Am J Prev Med. 2013 Oct;45(4):517-23.
For a copy of the slides, please click here [Download not found]
UCLA CFAR/AIDS Institute Grand Rounds
This monthly lecture series, which is offered by the UCLA CFAR / AIDS Institute, consists of hour-long lunchtime lectures, delivered by invited guests or distinguished members of the Institute faculty, on a broad range of subjects. The aims of the program are to highlight important developments in AIDS-related research, encourage collaborations between UCLA investigators and invited speakers, interest young investigators in AIDS research, and provide information about new findings and new funding opportunities.
Paul Edward Sax, MD
Clinical Director, Division of Infectious Disease, Brigham and Women?s Hospital
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
“The Most Important Studies in HIV Medicine in the Past Year, and Why”
SAN FRANCISCO — Over a cup of tea at a downtown Starbucks, Michael Rubio recalled how four friends became H.I.V. positive through unprotected sex, all within a year. The news shocked Mr. Rubio, a 28-year-old gay man, into trying a controversial new form of H.I.V. prevention: a daily pill that studies show is highly effective in protecting people from infection.
“With my inner circle so affected in the last year, it was a no-brainer to consider this for my life right now,” said Mr. Rubio, a front-office coordinator at the Positive Resource Center, a social service agency for people with H.I.V.
The very existence of that option represents a startling turn in the too-long history of the AIDS epidemic. Many health experts hoped that the medication — Truvada, a combination of two antiviral drugs that has been used to treat H.I.V. since 2004 — would be exuberantly embraced by H.I.V.-negative gay men. Instead, Truvada has been slow to catch on as an H.I.V. preventive in the 18 months since the strategy’s approval by the Food and Drug Administration. In some quarters, the idea that healthy gay men should take a medication to prevent infection — an approach called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP — has met with hostility or indifference.
The Development Core of CHIPTS is pleased to announce the 2014 CHIPTS Pilot grants have been awarded, anticipating funding as of February, 2014 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The program aims to prepare CHIPTS researchers and its collaborative partners to develop innovative research, consistent with or related to the CHIPTS priorities of eliminating HIV in Los Angeles County and to seed funding for larger research projects and intervention programs
Applicants were encouraged to propose domestic social, behavioral and policy research studies relevant to HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles County, from faculty investigators, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students at CHIPTS affiliated institutions (i.e., UCLA and Friends Research Institute). A total of $100,000 was available to fund Investigator awards up to $30,000 and postdoctoral and graduate student awards up to $15,000.
We propose to fund five meritorious proposals, which included three faculty level awards and two post-doctoral awards. The projects include:
Risk Behaviors of Drug Offending HIV+ MSM: Theodore Gideonse (PI), Tom Coates (Faculty Sponsor)
HIV positive MSM who are drug offenders are an understudied population prone to health behaviors potentially dangerous to themselves as well as their communities. This study will compare HIV risk behaviors of HIV positive men who have recently completed one of three major interventions available for drug offenders in Los Angeles: incarceration or jail; probation and diversion to drug treatment; and participation in drug court. The results of the work will help yield hypotheses concerning mechanisms for encouraging or discouraging HIV and other risk behaviors as well as to assess the feasibility of conducting a larger trial to address this community’s needs.
Formative Research to Advance Smartphone-based HIV Prevention for BYMSM: Ian Holloway (PI), Raphy Landovitz, John Williams, David Novak
This pilot seeks to better understand the preferences for smartphone-based interventions as a method to promote HIV testing and linkage to appropriate HIV services among Black young men who have sex with men (YMSM). Black YMSM continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV in Los Angeles County despite current prevention efforts, demonstrating the need for innovative, culturally congruent interventions. This research has high public health significance as it will lead to the development of an easily accessible, culturally relevant, and technology-based intervention for this highly at-risk population.
Assessing Acceptability of In-home Tests for MSM Through World Café: Sung-Jae Lee (PI)
This pilot study will provide a vital first step in providing population-specific data among MSM of color on barriers to HIV testing using in –home HIV test. The expected results will be used in development of larger study grant proposals to design and pilot an intervention to be integrated into the existing in-home test kit to facilitate HIV testing among at-risk MSM of color in Los Angeles.
Behavioral Risk Factor Survey Among Male–to-Female Transgender Inmates, Los Angeles County Jail: Mark Malek (PI)
Approximately 40% of male-to-female transgender persons in the Los Angeles County Jail’s (LACJ) transgender housing unit are HIV positive. This project involves conducting a behavioral risk factor survey among the transgender individuals of the LACJ’s transgender housing unit. The goals are to identify, describe, and quantify unique behavioral risk characteristics; to compare characteristics among HIV positive and negative transgender persons, and to establish accurate HIV/STI estimates.
Feasibility of Using Social Media and eCommerce to Increase In-home HIV Testing: Robert Marlin (PI), Jeff Klausner (Faculty Sponsor)
Innovative HIV prevention approaches are in critical need to control the spread of HIV in Los Angeles County particularly among communities with high rates of undiagnosed HIV infection, such as Black MSM. This project examines the feasibility of using social media aimed at Black MSM to promote vouchers for in-home HIV tests that can be redeemed online; establish an electronic voucher redemption system with an online retailer; and to utilize voucher tracking and phone surveys to determine which methods of voucher promotion and redemption have the highest acceptability and lead to an uptake in HIV testing.