University of California San Diego CFAR

Primary contacts

Connie Benson:            cbenson@ucsd.edu
http://cfar.ucsd.edu/

1. HIV/TB Co-infection Projects and Researchers:

• HIV-TB clinical trials (C. Benson, UCSD PI):  Evaluating novel therapies or therapeutic approaches for treatment and prevention of TB, M.D.RTB, and XDRTB, particularly new drug development. Most of this work is being done in conjunction with the NIH AIDS Clinical Trials Group Network international research sites, which include units in Durban (Umesh Lalloo and Slim Karim) and Johannesburg (Ian Sanne and Francesca Coonradie), SA; Malawi (Mina Hosseinipour and Johnstone Kumwenda), Uganda (Peter Mugenyi), Kenya (both Eldoret-Abraham Siika and Kericho-Fred Sawe), Tanzania (John Bartlett), Botswana (Max Essex’s group), Zambia (Jeff Stringer), and Zimbabwe (James Hakim).
• Development of rapid, point-of-care and other new diagnostic assays for TB:  Working with the ACTG in clinical trials evaluating new diagnostics and their applicability in clinical settings in South Africa (C. Benson, S. Swindells, A. Leutkemeyer, Ian Sanne – co-investigators) as well as working with Precision Photonics, Inc. - mBio Division on a SBIR grant testing a prototype diagnostic device and establishing a clinical cohort and TB specimen repository in Maputo, Mozambique (R. Schooley and C. Benson, co-investigators).
• Early stage project focused on risk factors associated with spread of M.D.R/XDR TB among HIV-TB transmission networks, and outcomes associated with different patterns of drug resistance; this project is being done in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.  C. Benson (cbenson@ucsd.edu) & D. Park (dap001@ucsd.edu), co-investigators.

2. Inter-CFAR Shared Resources:

• Extensive experience and expertise in HIV-TB investigator-initiated clinical trials study design, protocol  development, planning and implementation in resource-limited settings

• Collaborations with pharma relative to new TB drugs in development and access to novel compounds through those collaborations
• Expertise in development and evaluation of novel diagnostics
• Molecular epidemiology of mycobacterial infection