New Study Tracks
HIV and Aging
Dual-gender research targets greater subject diversity
By Damian McNamara
Photograph by Jorge R. Perez
From left: Drs. Maria Alcaide, Margaret Fischl and Deborah Jones Weiss.
The National Institutes of Health has awarded University of Miami researchers $14 million for an ambitious seven-year project that will keep the Miller School of Medicine at the forefront of cutting-edge HIV research. The research will track cardiovascular and pulmonary disease, as well as other non-infectious conditions that people with HIV — both women and men — experience as they age.
Principal investigators Margaret Fischl, M.D. ’76; Deborah Jones Weiss, Ph.D., M.Ed.; and Maria Alcaide, M.D., are working with an interdisciplinary team of HIV experts at UM and 12 other sites around the United States to launch the project.
The Miller School researchers will play a critical role in the study because the rise in the incidence of HIV, particularly among young and diverse Americans, is hitting the Southeast the hardest.
Locally, the team is working with the City of Miami Department of Health and the Miami Center for AIDS Research, the AIDS Institute and other multidisciplinary researchers across the Miller School campus. They also plan to combine efforts with the University of Miami’s new CHARM (Center for HIV and Research on Mental Health) Center, launched with a four-year, $3.32 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, which will target HIV and mental health.
