2026 CFAR Research Symposium Abstracts

The Penn Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) held an open call for abstracts in all areas of HIV research for our symposium “HIV Frontiers:  Healthy Living and Progress to Cure” on September 30th, 2026. Posters for each of these abstracts will be on view in the lobby throughout the day, and presenting authors will be available to discuss their work during the reception following the symposium. Please visit these posters and take a moment to speak with the investigators about their work.

Abstracts for all scientific posters can be found by clicking on the title.

Poster 1 Identification of HIV-1 V3-glycan Supersite-Targeting Nanobodies Using Engineered V3 Ectodomain Probes Adomah, Richard
Poster 2 Impact of PERK Genetic Variants on the Serum Cytokine Profile of People with HIV on Antiretroviral Therapy: An Ancestry-Stratified Analysis Akay-Espinoza, Cagla
Poster 3 CD4-Targeted mRNA Delivery of Tat Reverses HIV-1 Latency Albertus, Amie
Poster 4 The short-term impacts of U.S. foreign assistance cuts on HIV service delivery in PEPFAR partner countries Arrington Sanders, Renata
Poster 5 Treatment with μ-opioid receptor antagonist improves immune recovery in people with HIV and OUD (The AMOHI study) Azzoni, Livio
Poster 6 Differences in perceptions and norms of Mpox vaccine and long-acting injectable PrEP between university health system and community-based participants in Philadelphia Babbin, Charlotte
Poster 7 The Penn CFAR Clinical Core Cohort Registry: A 20-year Cohort of People with HIV Supported by Integrated Biostatistics and Data Science Infrastructure Barrell, Ted
Poster 8 Barcoded SHIV Model Enables In-Vivo Tracking of bnAb-Sensitive and -Resistant Variants During bnAb Administration at ART Initiation Beratan, Noah
Poster 9 Antigen Boosting Promotes Expansion of HIV-Resistant Dual CAR T Cells and Enables Viral Control Bhardwaj, Vipin
Poster 10

The Pharmacy-based HIV prevention and Sexual Health Engagement Services (PHASES) Project: Implementation strategies and mechanisms for pharmacist-delivered HIV/STI prevention care in Philadelphia, USA

Bien-Gund, Cedric
Poster 11 What happens after HIV self-testing? Barriers to care and PrEP among men who have sex with men in Philadelphia Bien-Gund, Cedric
Poster 12 Policy Impacts of Defunding Syringes on Local Organizations and HIV & Hepatitis C Risk Behaviors in People Who Inject Drugs Bradwell, Shermont
Poster 13 Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery Cutoff Scores: Moving from Research to Impact Branch, Kaleb
Poster 14 A Short Tale: Cytoplasmic Tail Modifications of an HIV Env Immunogen to Enhance Cell Surface Expression and Vaccine Immunogenicity Brock, Breezy
Poster 15 Links between Oral Health, Cognition, and Epigenetic Age Acceleration in People Living with and without HIV Dalal, Sonia
Poster 16 HIV virion capturing liposomes for therapeutic vaccination Deak, Peter
Poster 17 Psychiatric symptoms and engagement in care in people with opioid use disorder who inject drugs and with HIV or at risk for HIV Denis, Cecile
Poster 18 Feasibility and acceptability of CBT-based counseling for MOUD and HIV care engagement and support (AMOHI study) Denis, Cecile
Poster 19 A V1V2 Apex bNAb precursor switches epitope specificity to the gp41 base upon immunization Din, Zainul Abe
Poster 20 Identifying barriers to cancer screening for people with HIV Doherty, Meredith
Poster 21 Inhibition of DNA-PKcs enhances CRISPR/Cas9 inactivation of the HIV-1 provirus Effah, Samuel Nyamekye
Poster 22 Brain Alterations Detected by Ultrasound Radiomics in Neonates and Infants Born HIV-Exposed Uninfected Escavy-Zamora, Eva M.
Poster 23 Implementation of a health department-led transitional housing program for people with HIV experiencing housing instability: mixed-methods findings from Arms Around You Fabian, Eva
Poster 24 An HIV-specific TALE mRNA mediated strategy for potent and specific HIV-1 latency reversal Fulmer, Danica
Poster 25 HIV-1 bNAb precursors switch specificity to non-neutralizing epitopes of Env upon immunization Gong, Laura
Poster 26 A Case of Amphotericin B and Fluconazole Resistant Cryptococcal Meningitis in Advanced HIV Patient Graydon, Elisa/Naqvi, Syeda Hira
Poster 27 Evaluating the first individual-level feedback for the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery (PCNB) in Botswana Guy-Williams, Darryna
Poster 28 Meeting Them Where They Are”: Provider Perspectives on Integrating Substance Use Treatment for Young Black and Latino MSM into HIV Prevention and Treatment Settings Gwiazdowski, Bevin
Poster 29 “We’re Not Even in the Picture”: Transmasculine Perceptions of PrEP Marketing and HIV Prevention Messaging Gzesh, Ari S.
Poster 30 Deletions in variable region 1 of the HIV envelope accelerate V3-glycan bNAb induction in SHIV-infected rhesus macaques Hogarty, Michael P
Poster 31 Single-cell multi-omic profiling of tissue-specific immune and non-immune cells across the gut in ART-suppressed people living with HIV Imperiali, Annalisa
Poster 32 Viral adaptation to a CD4bs bnAb N49-P9.6 in primary, participant-derived HIV Envelopes in a humanized mouse model Jawale, Opal
Poster 33 Awareness Without Initiation: The PrEP Cascade Among Black and Latinx Transgender and Gender-Nonbinary Youth Assigned Female at Birth Jelinek, Scott K.
Poster 34 Characterizing CRISPR/Cas9-induced edits to the HIV-1 LTR: Implications for transcriptional output and effects of chromatin structures Jones, Joanna E.
Poster 35 Evaluating the Impact of the Two-Tier Medical Case Management Model Among People Living with HIV in the City of Philadelphia Karaj,Antoneta
Poster 36 Physical Performance and Gait are Negatively Impacted by Peripheral Neuropathy in Persons Living with HIV (PLHIV) Kietrys, DM
Poster 37 “Kept in the Loop”: How Care Coordination Within the HIV Care Team Addresses Patient Wellness Priorities in the Context of Social Determinants of Health​ Kole, Lauren/ Uradu, Toochi
Poster 38 In Vivo Replication of a loxBTR-SHIV for Nonhuman Primate Cure Studies Krause, RJ
Poster 39 Use of a Quality Improvement Initiative to Target Rates of Infant Feeding Counseling among Parents Living with HIV, Informing Implementation Science Needs Krivacsy. Sara
Poster 40 Epigenetic Age Acceleration is not mirrored by cognitive performance in people with and without HIV Kumar, Anil
Poster 41 Metacognitive Experience in People With HIV: A Systematic Review Lee, Joyce
Poster 42 Expanding the repertoire of V3 glycan supersite-specific CAR T cell products with distinct binding dependencies Li, Alice
Poster 43 Structural basis of V2 apex recognition by rapidly developed broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies Lin, Zi Jie
Poster 44 HIV-1 Dual-Epitope Targeting Immunogens to Enhance CD4bs and Apex Recognition Liu, Gabby (Xiaoyang)
Poster 45 HIV-resistant Dual CAR T cells targeting CD19 and HIV concurrently control HIV replication and B cell lymphoma in vivo Liu, Nan
Poster 46 “You use condoms? You are Young!” Describing Adolescents’ and Young Adults’ Experiences of Stigma Surrounding Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Delivery in Botswana Loabile, Bogadi
Poster 47 Fecal microbiota transplantation reduces inflammation and modulates gene expression in HIV-infected double humanized-BLT (dHu-BLT) mice on antiretroviral therapy Lohani, Saroj
Poster 48 Brain GABA and Glutathione in People with HIV Manteghinejad, Amirreza
Poster 49 Enhanced B Cell Priming Leads to Rapid Induction of Broadly Neutralizing HIV-1 Apex Antibodies Marchitto, Lorie
Poster 50 Transforming Raw Data to Interpretable Metrics: Standardizing BRACE Cognitive Scores within the iHOME Study McCullough, Kellye
Poster 51 Leveraging Artificial Intelligence-Generated Patient Portal Messages to Support PrEP Engagement Among Cisgender Black and Latino Men Who Have Sex with Men: A Mixed-Methods Pilot Acceptability Study Meanley, Steven
Poster 52 Cognitive Emotion Regulation Traits Predict Inflammation During a Natural Stressor using Intensive Longitudinal Blood Sampling Moriarty, Daniel
Poster 53 Characterizing how the novel recombinase Brec1 acts on HIV-1 DNA in vitro Newcombe, Kevin
Poster 54 Heard, Informed, and Supported: Communication Preferences Around Infant Feeding Among Birthing Persons with HIV in the United States Nightingale, Kira J
Poster 55 Sequential immunization to induce Silent Face bNAbs in IgKI mice Palacio, Maria Belen
Poster 56 Design and Validation of Membrane-Tethered IL-21 mRNAs for NK Immunomodulation Patankar, Sayalee N.
Poster 57 Ablating endocytic motifs within Env mRNA vaccines enhances cell surface expression and immunogenicity Perez Devia, Natalia
Poster 58 Long-Acting Injectable Antiretroviral Therapy as a Catalyst for Engagement in Opioid Use Disorder Treatment Among People with HIV Who Inject Drugs Perez, Amanda /Whidden, Elizabeth
Poster 59 The dynamics of Gγ4 during CD4 T cell activation Premo, Katherine
Poster 60 Targeted Tat mRNA latency reversal augmented by IL-7 signaling Provost, Samantha
Poster 61 Parallelized Genome-Wide Detection of Intact HIV Provirus with Bimodal Phenotyping in Single Cells Qi, Y.
Poster 62 Rapid elicitation of neutralizing Asn332-glycan-independent antibodies to the V3-glycan epitope of HIV-1 Env in nonhuman primates Relano-Rodriguez, Ignacio
Poster 63 Development of Novel breastmilk TF SHIVs to advance bnAb strategies in pediatric HIV-1 infection Robinson, Jake
Poster 64 Comparative Rates of Perinatal and Postpartum Linkage to Care for Pregnant Patients, by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) Infection Status Saine, Elle
Poster 65 HBsAg serotype modulates HIV-1 replication and genome architecture in macrophages Saraf, Sharada
Poster 66 MOUD exacerbates the distinctive metabolic patterns associated with HIV infection and suppressive ART Shipilova, Ekaterina
Poster 67 Characterization of the HIV-1 epitope recognized by antibody Ab3 Simelus, Presley
Poster 68 HIV Infection Orchestrates Modality-Specific Spliceosome Stress Across Acute Microglial, Chronic CNS, and Peripheral Immune Compartments: A Multi-Dataset Convergence Study Solomon, S and Li, P.
Poster 69 iPSC-derived Microglia-integrated Forebrain Organoids: A Novel Model for HIV Infection in the CNS Solomon, Shiden
Poster 70 Pilot & Feasibility Study for Understanding Cognition and Mental Health in Older Adults Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Stites, Shana D.
Poster 71 Combination Immunotherapy with Species-matched Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies Delivered via mRNA-lipid nanoparticles Su, Justin
Poster 72 Global Epitranscriptomic Alterations in HIV-Infected Monocyte-Derived Macrophages Su, Yijing/Alvarez-Perriel, Elena
Poster 73 Reprogramming cytotoxic natural killer cells via IL-15-conjuguated mRNA-LNP Talana, Chloe Adrienna
Poster 74 Redirecting Antibody Specificity from the gp41 base to the V3-glycan epitope through Env-Based Immunization Tarquis-Medina, Marta
Poster 75 Computer-assisted Cognitive Behavior Therapy in a Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of SSRI on Depressive Symptoms and Immune Function in People with HIV in Philadelphia, USA Voytek, Chelsea D
Poster 76 Longitudinal Characterization of an Expanding Autologous Neutralizing Antibody Response After Early Antiretroviral Therapy  Walker, Lauren
Poster 77 Characterizing HIV Env Escape in Response to VRC07-523LS in a SHIV-Infected NHP Model Xilotl-Gonzalez, Michelle
Poster 78 Neutralization of Interferon-Beta Promotes HIV-Specific CAR T-cell Engraftment and Proliferation Yang, Tyler
Poster 79 An Evidence-Oriented Large Language Model Pipeline for Comparing Subjective–Objective Cognitive Correspondence in HIV and Alzheimer’s Disease Yuan, Yiran
Poster 80 Development of mRNA LNPs to elicit a non-classical T cell response against HIV Zamora, Marco E.
Poster 81 Comparative Investigation of Immunopathogenesis in HIV- and Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Single Infection Versus Co-Infection Using Humanized Mice Zhao, Miaoyun
Poster 82 Robust early expansion of rare HIV bnAb precursors is crucial to drive the development of cross-neutralizing serum responses Zhu, Yuxin
Poster 83 CAR lentiviral vector integration and T-cell outgrowth associated with formation of a novel CAR-MALT1 neomorphic allele  Zolnoski, Sonja