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Dr. MV Frias is elected to US-NIH’s ACTG Executive Committee

March 23, 2021 | 8:00 am

Dr. Melchor Victor Frias IV, the former DLSMHSI vice chancellor for Research, has been elected investigator-at-large of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) of the United States – National Institute of Health (NIH). The investigator-at-large is nominated by the general membership of the ACTG and is elected by ballot by its voting members. As investigator-at-large, Dr. Frias becomes a member of the ACTG’s Executive Committee (AEC), which serves as the main governing body of the ACTG network and is responsible for the development andimplementation of policy, procedural decisions, and resource allocation for the ACTG.

As a member of the AEC, Dr. Frias will participate in discussions and processes towards the development of the ACTG to help it achieve its objectives.

The ACTG is the world’s largest and longest running HIV clinical trials network and seeks to “advance approaches to ultimately cure HIV” tuberculosis, viral hepatitis and its co-morbidities by conducting and supporting groundbreaking research all over the world.

 

US-NIH names DLSMHSI a research site for the ACTG De La Salle Medical and Health Sciences Institute’s Centers for Health Research has been selected by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States as one of 101 clinical research sites (CRSs) responsible for implementing the scientific agenda of the NIH HIV/AIDS clinical research networks. The CRSs are funded by NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The site will be under the umbrella of Emory HIV Clinical Trials Unit (CTU) in Atlanta, Georgia which was one of the 35 CTUs selected for this recompetition. The seven-year award to Emory has an expected funding of $12.5 million.

As a CRS, DLSMHSI will conduct clinical trials within The AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG). The DLSMHSI CRS is directed by Dr. Melchor Frias, a professor in Pediatrics of the DLSMHSI College of Medicine and a clinical epidemiologist; and Dr. Maria Tarcela Gler, an Infectious Disease Specialist and an MDR-TB clinician.

This distinction is a continuation of DLSMHSI’s involvement in US-NIH funded clinical trials and studies after DLSMHSI was identified as a protocol-specific site for the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) and International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials (IMPAACT) networks’ Phase 3 international multicenter trial entitled “Protecting Households On Exposure to Newly Diagnosed Index Multidrug-resistant Tuberculosis Patients (PHOENIX)” which commenced in November 2016.

 

The research activities of the NIH HIV clinical trials networks also include the treatment and prevention of other infectious  diseases, including tuberculosis and hepatitis, which are the most significant co-infections for people living with, or at risk for, HIV.

 

The Emory HIV CTU is directed by two principal investigators, Dr. Jeffrey Lennox, professor of medicine in infectious diseases and associate dean for clinical research at Emory University School of Medicine; and Dr. Carlos del Rio, professor of medicine in infectious diseases and executive associate dean for Emory School of Medicine at Grady Health System and co-director
of the Emory Center for AIDS Research.

“We are very excited about the important clinical trials work this grant will continue to allow us to pursue,” says Lennox at the announcement of the grant for new funding. “Our existing Emory CTU has been very successful in conducting HIV clinical trials, but our partnerships in Mexico and the Philippines expand our reach to two key international sites and will allow us to move forward with new research that could make a significant impact on this still challenging disease," says del Rio.

More information about the NIH HIV Clinical Trials Networks can be accessed here.

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