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HIV/AIDS Research
Natella Rakhmanina, MD, studies how the drugs that fight HIV affect children differently than adults. |
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Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the virus responsible for causing acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The virus destroys or impairs cells of the immune system and progressively destroys the body's ability to fight infections and certain cancers. In adults and adolescents, HIV is most commonly spread by sexual contact with an infected partner. In the United States, nearly all HIV infections in children under the age of 13 are from vertical transmission, which means the virus is passed to children when they are in their mother's womb or as they pass through the birth canal, and occasionally through breast feeding.
Investigators at the Center for Clinical and Community Research and the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research and the Center for Molecular Physiology conduct research in the lab and direct clinical research that tests new therapies for HIV in children and adolescents, and also work in the community to create effective education and prevention programs. The Burgess Clinic, a part of the Adolescent Health Center in the Goldberg Center for Community Pediatric Health, provides primary and specialty care for HIV infected and at risk teens and serves as the regional site for the 15-center national research group, the Adolescent Trials Network (ATN). For younger children, the Special Immunology Service (SIS) provides specialty HIV services and is the focal point for Children’s National’s International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trial ( IMPAACT). Many of patients seen in the SIS clinic come from other regional health providers or centers and are frequently recent immigrants to the United States. Both of these programs also provide professional and public education, as well as advocacy for those affected by HIV/AIDS.
Researchers in HIV-AIDS work side by side with healthcare quality specialists to actively research
- The behavioral aspects of HIV/AIDS in adolescents and young adults
- Ways of identifying at risk and HIV infected youth
- The developmental pharmacology of antiretroviral therapy with the focus on changes during puberty
- The effect of host drug metabolizing genes on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of antiretroviral therapy
- The development of the model for the universal HIV screening in pediatric Emergency Department
- The predictors of adherence among HIV infected children and youth
- The interactions of viruses and their host cells
- The contribution of the host cell functions to the maintenance of HIV latency
- The mechanism by which cellular genes that help control HIV latency
- The affect of HIV gene products on host cell physiology and host cell signal transduction pathways
- The use of new drugs for HIV in children
- The side effects of drugs used to treat HIV infection and the infections that afflict HIV-infected children.
- How HIV infection affects growth and development in children
Faculty who study HIV/AIDS
- Lawrence D’Angelo, MD, MPH
- William Barnes, PhD, MBA
- Ricardo LaGrange, PhD
- Maureen Lyon, PhD
- Natella Rakhmanina, MD, AAHIVS
- Tamara A Rakusan, MD, PhD
- Patricio Ray, MD
- Steven Zeichner, MD, PhD
Related links
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