InflammAIDS is project financed by ANID, Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo.
Our goal is to perform an in-depth study looking for immune, inflammatory, and virological signatures that characterize PLWH under suppressive ART with and without metabolic syndrome with the aim of identifying predictive risk factors of a poor clinical outcome.
To do that we will
-Generate the first prospective cohort of PLWH in Chile.
– Determine and characterize the immune, inflammatory, and virological signatures of the cohort.
– Identify risk markers predictive of a poor clinical outcome in PLWH.
Meet our team
Principal Investigators
- Dr. Ricardo Soto-Rifo, Full professor of the Virology Program at Universidad de Chile Faculty of Medicine and associate researcher at the Millennium Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy. Dr. Soto-Rifo has a vast experience in studying HIV replication and is currently investigating the molecular basis of HIV RNA-triggered immune activation in macrophages and microglia during infection.
- Dr. Claudia Cortés, associate professor at Universidad de Chile Faculty of Medicine, clinician researcher at Fundación Arriarán, the main HIV center in Chile, and member of the International AIDS Society governing council, will be our Deputy Director. Dr. Cortés is an infectious disease specialist that has dedicated most of her career to investigate different clinical aspects of PLWH in Chile as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Dr. Marcelo Navarrete, full professor at Universidad de Magallanes School of Medicine and medical director at Laboratorio de Medicina Molecular, Centro Asistencial Docente y de Investigación CADI-UMAG is one of our principal investigators. Dr. Navarrete is a hematologist with extensive experience in studying the B-cell repertoire and molecular basis of B-cell malignancies.
- Dr. Mercedes López, associate professor and Director of the Immunology Program at Universidad de Chile Faculty of Medicine is also a principal investigator at InflammAIDS. Dr. López has been studying the immune response in cancer and cancer immunotherapy for several years and has a strong expertise in inflammation.
- Dr. Vinicius Maracaja-Coutinho, assistant professor at Universidad de Chile Faculty of Pharmacy and Chemical Sciences, associate researcher at the Advanced Center for Chronic Diseases (ACCDiS) and president of the Sociedad Chilena de Bioinformática completes the list of principal investigators at InflammAIDS. Dr. Maracaja-Coutinho is a bioinformatician expert in systems biology and genomic/metagenomic data analysis, as well as in studying the complexity of human transcriptome in both tissue and single-cell levels under different chronic and infectious diseases.
Associate researchers
- Dr. Fernando Valiente- Echeverría, associate professor at Universidad de Chile Faculty of Medicine and president of the Sociedad de Microbiología de Chile with a vast experience in HIV replication and latency
- Dr. Rodrigo Muñoz, infectious diseases specialist and chair of the HIV Program at Hospital de Magallanes, with extensive experience in the management of PLWH.
Adjunct researchers
The InflammAIDS research group will also have the collaboration of:
- Dr. Alicia Colombo, scientific director of BTUCH, biobanking specialist and promoter of the Chilean Network of Research Biobanks initiative.
- Dr. Andrés Soto, infectious diseases specialist at Universidad de Chile Faculty of Medicine and chair of the HIV Program at Hospital del Salvador.
- Dr. Mónica Pinto, infectious diseases specialist at Hospital de Magallanes.
- Dr. Cecilia Piñera, pediatrician and infectious diseases specialist at Universidad de Chile Faculty of Medicine and at Hospital Exequiel González Cortés and coordinator of the Chilean pediatric HIV cohort.
- Dr. Aldo Gaggero, environmental virologist at Universidad de Chile Faculty of Medicine with experience in virome characterization and analyses.
- Mg. Fabio Paredes, statistician expert in public health and statistics
Postdoctoral fellows
- Dra. Nicole Letelier
- Dra. Daniela Jara
- Dra. Aracelly Gaete-Argel
Scientific Communication Unit (SCU)
- Dra. Lucía Núñez Aguilera
Project assistant
- T.M. Mónica Peña
