About
Assistant Clinical Professor
Division of Infectious Diseases
UCLA
Project title: Impact of Hepatitis C Co-infection on Cardiovascular Risk in HIV-infected Persons
Mentors:
Judith S. Currier, MD, MSc – UCLA
Debika Bhattacharya, MD, MS – UCLA
Raymond T. Chung, MD – Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital
David Elashoff, PhD – UCLA
C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD – Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Steven-Huy Han, MD – UCLA
Multidisciplinary Expertise:
Infectious disease, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, inflammation
Project Description:
In the current era of effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) and aging HIV-infected patients, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other non-AIDS complications are responsible for an increasing number of deaths. CVD risk is increased in HIV-monoinfected persons and HCV coinfection, as a second chronic viral infection with associated immune activation and inflammation, as well as known metabolic derangements, may further increase this risk. The proposed study will establish a multi-site prospective, longitudinal cohort of sociodemographically diverse HIV/HCV-coinfected and matched HIV-monoinfected men and women with HIV suppressed on stable ART to investigate the impact of HCV coinfection on CVD risk assessed by endothelial function and soluble CVD biomarkers and the potential for HCV treatment to improve CVD outcomes, as well as explore macrophage activation as a mediator of endothelial dysfunction in HIV/HCV.